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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Correct, nor a former President from becoming a Cabinet member, and eligible to succeed that way. Of course, one is implying a remarkable level of conspiracy that cannot be anything other than totally obvious to the public and the media.
The Constitution skips over the question of what happens if one of the persons in the line of succession is ineligible to be President, but one imagines it would, logically, go to the first one who is.
Edit: I can't find where in the Constitution it says that the Speaker of the House succeeds the Vice President; it would seem to fall under the authority of Congress to legislate the succession.
edited 3rd Nov '15 11:37:16 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It's largely moot because usually the presidents are too exhausted by their term in the modern day to take on further high-level duties, and that's *if* they're not tainted by some aspect of their legacy. Even a relatively popular guy like Clinton would have been dodgy as an appointment for, say, Commerce Secretary under Obama, since then you're just bringing all the baggage back on you.
Interestingly, a strict reading of the Constitution indicates that a sufficiently united Congress could conduct an internal coup entirely legally by:
- Electing their preferred President as Speaker of the House.
- Impeaching and convicting both President and Vice President.
Some might observe that the power of the President and the Senate to replace the Vice President is a more direct path to an unelected individual becoming President, because that only requires 51 Senate votes followed by the President resigning his office, exactly as happened with Nixon and Ford.
edited 3rd Nov '15 12:06:07 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Oh yeah, you get a disciplined 2/3rds and the legislature could do anything: veto overrides, impeach everyone, ram through amendments willy-nilly. The founders either didn't envision sufficiently disciplined political parties becoming a thing (and until recently, they largely weren't in the US, due to parties representing broad economic interests more than ideological ones), or figured that 2/3rds consensus is enough for "tyranny of the majority." So i'm probably betting they figured the former.
Reasonably speaking, the Senate, by more accurately representing the distribution of political opinion across the country, is the last bastion of defense against a Congressional coup, as it requires a two-thirds majority there to convict on impeachment, excluding such trickery as hijacking Senators to obtain your preferred quorum.
If you really do get that huge a supermajority opposed to the sitting President on ideological grounds, as opposed to because of genuine malfeasance, something has gone catastrophically wrong in our political system. I'm imagining Trump 2016, followed by a Democrat super-sweep in 2018 and a 2019 legislative coup...
edited 3rd Nov '15 12:40:45 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Unless Congress goes batshit, it would take more than two years for Trump to destroy the country. I don't peg him as actively psychopathic, as would be indicated for anyone to come to the office and immediately launch nukes.
For him to be elected, though, might well indicate a Tea Party sweep of the national elections, out of which we would be damned lucky to extract a functioning nation in eight years. Fortunately, Congress would have the opportunity to change hands in 2018, and it almost certainly would.
edited 3rd Nov '15 1:01:53 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@Silasw: Congress is not batshit. Some parts of it are, but they only control enough votes at the moment to obstruct governance, not get their way in all things.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The last attempt at such a Congressional coup was against Andrew Johnson, who had intentionally been picked as a cross-party VP by Lincoln. And even they had the courtesy to start by forcing unconstitutional laws on the guy to induce him to break them. A 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress is completely unchecked (they can replace the Supreme Court, too) - that's why our system was set up so that it doesn't happen.
Now, ignoring the prospect of Nancy Pelosi as President, I'm in favor of O'Malley as veep, whichever of Clinton or Sanders wins. He's clearly going nowhere in this election, but in 2024, the loser of Sanders and Clinton will probably be too old to run, and as I've said before, the Democrats have a serious leadership deficit in the top ranks. O'Malley would be a good candidate to groom for the next shot.
One of the themes on the library catalog right now is "Get to know the candidates", and most of the big names have their own books.
Some of those guys are already knocked out, but hey, the idea of being a politician is to put your influence into the world, even if you don't get elected.
You gotta believe me when I scare you away, all that I wish for is that you would stayIt's already been pointed out that Carson going on a book tour was basically the same thing as remaining on the campaign. Writing books is like having a campaign that never stops, because those are going to stay out there for a good long while. Actually, seems like book writing is becoming a standard thing for politicians.
Fun fact, Castros refer to themselves individually as 'Castro', call each other 'Castras', and collectively refer to themselves as 'Castramos'. This helps make it less confusing when the One-Steve Limit is broken.
edited 3rd Nov '15 5:27:13 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

There is still another workaround though, nothing stops a former president running for congress and becoming speaker.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran