now, today, the speaker of the house is under a statute
that's been passed in the, in the 1940's, next after the vice
presidency and the president pro tem of the senate after the speaker but
not at all clear, defines actually what the constitution contemplated.
The Constitution says that the Congress is
supposed to designate an officer to succeed
a vacant Presidency, Vice Presidency. And it's not at all clear that members
of the legislature are officers, in the relevant constitutional sense.
At least that's what James Madison argued, way back
in the 1790s, when Congress passed the first succession statute.
That first successions statute put legislative leaders, senate
leaders and house leaders in the line of succession.
And Madison said no, no, no, officers, by officers
we meant Cabinet Officers.
Folks in effect who had been hand picked by
the President to, to succeed him, not legislative leaders.
And in fact there's another provision in the Constitution that
says that law makers, legislators, can not be Executive Officers.
In England, in a parliamentary system, you've got, members
of parliament who are also part of the cabinet.
You've got a
prime minister, the, the head of the executive
branch, who is also a sitting member of parliament.
But the Constitution in article one actually
says Senators and Representatives can't be officers.
So the minute, for example, Senator Hillary Clinton is asked to
become Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she has to leave the Senate.
Senator Salazar is asked to become
Cabinet Secretary Salazar.
Senator Kerry is asked to become Cabinet Secretary Kerry.
These folks have to leave the Senate because of
a thing called the incompatibility clause in the Constitution.
You can't, in America, this is a feature of American-style separation of
powers, be a member of both the legislature and the executive branch.
And so Madison said, now listen, how's this going to work?
You know, you can't simultaneously
be Speaker of the House and President, both ends of, of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Signing bills and then deciding, as Speaker of the House,
and then deciding whether to veto them or not as president.
So, so, it doesn't really make sense Madison argued,
for sitting lawmakers to be your, your caretaker presidents.
And if they have to step down from the legislature,
in order to be president Madison said, well then you know,
why not actually have Cabinet officers do that because they would be part
of the administration, hand picked by the
persons who had actually vacated the office.
Again, this idea of executive power as very indivualistic.
We, we vote for a person, as President and if that person can't be President why not
have someone that person has hand picked, their
Secretary of State for example carry on their mandate.
In a world of political parties, Madison's ideas I think,
actually became even more powerful because if you vote for
Republicans as George W Bush and Dick Chaney, you shouldn't
end up if disaster strikes, with a Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
You know, if you vote for, for Ronald Reagan
and George HW Bush, you shouldn't end up with
Tip O' Neill.
If you vote for Barrack Obama and, and Joe
Biden, you shouldn't ever end up with, with John Boehner.
So we're going to come back to that in, in later in later lectures, but for now,
the very existence of a vice presidency confirms
the unitary and continuous nature of executive power.
And so does the provision for succession in the event of double
death or double disability.