United States presidential line of succession#Current order of succession

The presidential order of succession is set by the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, as amended.{{cite web | title=Title 3 – The President: Chapter 1 – Presidential Elections and Vacancies | url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2017-title3/pdf/USCODE-2017-title3-chap1.pdf | year=2017 | page=6 | publisher=U.S. Government Publishing Office | location=Washington, D.C. | access-date=January 18, 2019 | archive-date=February 9, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230209032853/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2017-title3/pdf/USCODE-2017-title3-chap1.pdf | url-status=live }} The order consists of congressional officers, followed by the members of the cabinet in the order of the establishment of each department, provided that each officer satisfies the constitutional requirements for serving as president.{{cite web | title=Order of Presidential Succession | url=https://www.usa.gov/presidential-succession | website=USA.gov | publisher=US General Services Administration | access-date=November 27, 2024 | archive-date=November 21, 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241121165925/https://www.usa.gov/presidential-succession | url-status=live }} In the table below, the absence of a number in the first column indicates that the office is either vacant, or that the incumbent is ineligible.

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: One must be a natural-born citizen of the United States (or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, in 1788), be at least 35 years of age and have been a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years.{{cite web | title=Article II. The Executive Branch, Annenberg Classroom | url=https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles/article-ii/article-ii-annenberg/interp/19 | work=The Interactive Constitution | publisher=The National Constitution Center | location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | access-date=June 15, 2018 | archive-date=April 17, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190417095830/https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles/article-ii/article-ii-annenberg/interp/19 | url-status=live }}{{efn-ua|The final sentence of the 12th Amendment explicitly states that the constitutional qualifications for holding the presidency also apply to being vice president.{{cite journal | last1=Peabody | first1=Bruce G. | last2=Gant | first2=Scott E. | date=February 1999 | title=The Twice and Future President: Constitutional Interstices and the Twenty-Second Amendment | url=http://alpha.fdu.edu/~peabody/Twice_and_Future_President.html | journal=Minnesota Law Review | publisher=University of Minnesota Law School | location=Minneapolis | volume=83 | issue=3 | pages=565–635 | access-date=June 12, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115121046/http://alpha.fdu.edu/~peabody/Twice_and_Future_President.html | archive-date=January 15, 2013}}}}

The presidential line of succession is mentioned in four places in the Constitution:

• Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 makes the vice president first in the line of succession and allows the Congress to provide by law for cases in which neither the president nor vice president can serve.{{cite web | last=Feerick | first=John | title=Essays on Article II: Presidential Succession | work=The Heritage Guide to the Constitution | url=https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/83/presidential-succession | publisher=The Heritage Foundation | access-date=June 12, 2018 | archive-date=August 22, 2020 | archive-url=https://archive.today/20200822232208/https://www.heritage.org/constitution/%23!/amendments/8/essays/161/cruel-and-unusual-punishment#!/articles/2/essays/83/presidential-succession | url-status=unfit }}
• The 12th Amendment provided that the vice president would also fill any vacancy of the presidency arising from failure of the House of Representatives to choose a president in a contingent election.{{cite journal | last=Feerick | first=John D. | date=2011 | title=Presidential Succession and Inability: Before and After the Twenty-Fifth Amendment | url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4695&context=flr | journal=Fordham Law Review | volume=79 | issue=3 | pages=907–949 | access-date=June 18, 2018 | archive-date=October 11, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201011081029/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4695&context=flr | url-status=live }}
• The 20th Amendment, Section 3, supersedes the above 12th Amendment provision, by declaring that if the president-elect dies before his term begins, the vice president-elect becomes president on Inauguration Day and serves for the full term to which the president-elect was elected, and also that, if on Inauguration Day, a president has not been chosen or the president-elect does not qualify for the presidency, the vice president-elect acts as president until a president is chosen or the president-elect qualifies. It also authorizes Congress to provide for instances in which neither a president-elect nor a vice president-elect have qualified.{{cite web | title=The Twentieth Amendment | last1=Larson | first1=Edward J. | last2=Shesol | first2=Jeff | url=https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xx | work=The Interactive Constitution | publisher=The National Constitution Center | location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | access-date=June 15, 2018 | archive-date=August 28, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190828202655/https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xx | url-status=live }}
• The 25th Amendment, Section 1, clarifies Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, by stating unequivocally that the vice president is the direct successor of the president, and becomes president if the incumbent dies, resigns or is removed from office. It also, in sections 3 and 4, provides for situations where the president is temporarily disabled, such as if the president has a surgical procedure or becomes mentally unfit, establishing procedures whereby the vice president can become acting president. Additionally, in Section 2, the amendment provides a mechanism for intra-term vice presidential succession, establishing that a vice presidential vacancy will be filled by a president's nominee upon confirmation by a majority vote of both houses of Congress.{{efn-ua|This section 2 of the 25th Amendment has been invoked twice: {{Nowrap|1973—}}Gerald Ford was nominated and confirmed to office following Spiro Agnew's resignation. {{Nowrap|1974—}}Nelson Rockefeller was nominated and confirmed to office after Ford became president upon Richard Nixon's resignation.{{cite web | last=Neale | first=Thomas H. | title=Presidential and Vice Presidential Succession: Overview and Current Legislation | page=5 | work=CRS Report for Congress | url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31761.pdf | publisher=Congressional Research Service, the Library of Congress | location=Washington, D.C. | date=September 27, 2004 | access-date=June 16, 2018 | archive-date=November 14, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201114173057/https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31761.pdf | url-status=live }}}} Previously, whenever a vice president had succeeded to the presidency or had died or resigned from office, the vice presidency remained vacant until the next presidential and vice presidential terms began; there were 16 such vacancies prior to 1967.{{cite web | title=The Twenty-fifth Amendment | last1=Kalt | first1=Brian C. | last2=Pozen | first2=David | url=https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxv | work=The Interactive Constitution | publisher=The National Constitution Center | location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | access-date=June 15, 2018 | archive-date=September 4, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190904214749/https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxv | url-status=live }}

{{Main|Presidential Succession Act}}

The Presidential Succession Act of 1792 ({{Cws | title=Full text | link=Presidential Succession Act 1792 | nobullet=yes}}) provided for succession after the president and vice president: first, the president pro tempore of the Senate, followed by the speaker of the House.{{cite magazine | url=https://time.com/4071416/house-speaker-presidential-succession/ | title=America's System for Presidential Succession is Ridiculous | last=Spivak | first=Joshua | date=October 14, 2015 | magazine=Time | access-date=June 18, 2018 | archive-date=May 13, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190513221553/http://time.com/4071416/house-speaker-presidential-succession/ | url-status=live }} The statute provided that the presidential successor would serve in an acting capacity, holding office only until a new president could be elected.{{cite web | last=Relyea | first=Harold C. | title=Continuity of Government: Current Federal Arrangements and the Future | work=CRS Report for Congress | url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RS21089.pdf | publisher=Congressional Research Service, the Library of Congress | location=Washington, D.C. | pages=2–4 | date=August 5, 2005 | access-date=June 16, 2018 | archive-date=January 14, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114194610/https://fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RS21089.pdf | url-status=live }} A special election was to be held in November of the year in which dual vacancies occurred (unless the vacancies occurred after the first Wednesday in October, in which case the election would occur the following year; or unless the vacancies occurred within the last year of the presidential term, in which case the next election would take place as regularly scheduled). The persons elected president and vice president in such a special election would have served a full four-year term beginning on March 4 of the next year. No such election ever took place.{{cite journal| last=Hamlin| first=Charles S.| title=The Presidential Succession Act of 1886| journal=Harvard Law Review| date=January 1905| volume=18| issue=3| pages=182–195| publisher=The Harvard Law Review Association| doi=10.2307/1323239| jstor=1323239| url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1323239| access-date=March 13, 2021|archive-date=January 2, 2023| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102143720/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1323239| url-status=live}}

Various framers of the Constitution, such as James Madison, criticized the arrangement as being contrary to their intent. The decision to build the line of succession around those two officials was made after a long and contentious debate. In addition to the president pro tempore and the speaker, both the secretary of state and the chief justice of the Supreme Court were also suggested. Including the secretary of state was unacceptable to most Federalists, who did not want the then secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who had become the leader of the opposition Democratic-Republicans, to follow the vice president in the succession, and many objected to including the chief justice due to separation of powers concerns.{{cite book | title=From Failing Hands: the Story of Presidential Succession | last1=Feerick | first1=John D. | last2=Freund | first2=Paul A. | date=1965 | url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=twentyfifth_amendment_books | publisher=Fordham University Press | location=New York City | pages=57–62 | lccn=65-14917 | access-date=June 24, 2018 | archive-date=November 20, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201120053125/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=twentyfifth_amendment_books | url-status=live }}

The Presidential Succession Act of 1886 ({{Cws | title=Full text | link=Presidential Succession Act 1886 | nobullet=yes}}) established succession to include the members of the president's cabinet in the order of the establishment of the various departments, beginning with the secretary of state,{{efn-ua|Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of War, Attorney-General, Postmaster-General, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Interior.}} and stipulated that any official discharging the powers and duties of the presidency must possess the constitutional qualifications to hold the office. The president pro tempore and speaker were excluded from the new line, and the provision mandating a special presidential election when a double vacancy arose was also dropped.

The need for increasing the number of presidential successors was abundantly clear to Congress, for twice within the span of just over four years it happened that there was no one in the presidential line of succession. In September 1881, when Chester A. Arthur succeeded to the presidency following James A. Garfield's death, there was no vice president, no president pro tempore of the Senate, and no speaker of the House of Representatives. Then, in November 1885, Grover Cleveland faced a similar situation, following the death of Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks, as the Senate and the House had not convened yet to elect new officers.{{cite book | title=Harper's Book of Facts: a Classified History of the World; Embracing Science, Literature, and Art | last1=Lewis | first1=Charlton Thomas | last2=Willsey | first2=Joseph H. | year=1895 | publisher=Harper & Brothers | location=New York | page=884 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA884 | access-date=April 24, 2011 | lccn=01020386 | archive-date=January 2, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102135548/https://books.google.com/books?id=UcwGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA884 | url-status=live }}

The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 ({{Cws | title=Full text | link=Presidential Succession Act 1947 | nobullet=yes}}), which was signed into law on July 18, 1947, restored the speaker of the House and president pro tempore of the Senate to the line of succession—but in reverse-order from their 1792 positions—and placed them ahead of the members of the Cabinet, positioned, as before, in the order of the establishment of their department.{{efn-ua|Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of War, Attorney General, Postmaster General, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor.}}

Placing the speaker and the president pro tempore (both elected officials) back in the succession and placing them ahead of cabinet members (all of whom are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate), was Harry S. Truman's idea. Personally conveyed to Congress in June 1945, two months after becoming president upon Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, the proposal reflected Truman's belief that the president should not have the power to appoint to office "the person who would be my immediate successor in the event of my own death or inability to act", and that the presidency should, whenever possible, "be filled by an elective officer."{{cite web | last=Truman | first=Harry S. | title=Special Message to the Congress on the Succession to the Presidency | date=June 19, 1945 | others=Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project | url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-the-succession-the-presidency | access-date=January 22, 2018 | archive-date=January 23, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190123010822/https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/special-message-the-congress-the-succession-the-presidency | url-status=live }}

The 1947 act has been modified several times, with changes being made as the face of the federal bureaucracy has changed over the ensuing years. Its most recent change came about in 2006, when the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act added the secretary of homeland security to the presidential line of succession.{{cite news | title=Succession: Presidential and Vice Presidential Fast Facts | url=https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/27/us/succession-presidential-and-vice-presidential-fast-facts/index.html | publisher=Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. | website=CNN.com | date=August 27, 2013 | access-date=June 20, 2018 | archive-date=October 3, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003005913/https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/27/us/succession-presidential-and-vice-presidential-fast-facts/index.html | url-status=live }}{{efn-ua|{{Nowrap|1947—}}substituted Secretary of Defense for Secretary of War and struck out Secretary of the Navy. {{Nowrap|1965—}}added Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and also Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. {{Nowrap|1966—}}added Secretary of Transportation. {{Nowrap|1970—}}removed Postmaster General. {{Nowrap|1977—}}added Secretary of Energy. {{Nowrap|1979—}}substituted Secretary of Health and Human Services for Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and added Secretary of Education. {{Nowrap|1988—}}Secretary of Veterans Affairs. {{Nowrap|2006—}}Secretary of Homeland Security.{{cite web | url=https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2016/title-3/chapter-1/sec.-19/ | title=2016 US Code Title 3 – The President Chapter 1 – Presidential Elections and Vacancies Sec. 19 – Vacancy in offices of both President and Vice President; officers eligible to act | work=US Law | publisher=Justia | location=Mountain View, California | access-date=June 19, 2018 | archive-date=January 14, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114220247/https://law.justia.com/codes/us/2016/title-3/chapter-1/sec.-19/ | url-status=live }}}}

File:John Tyler.jpg became the first person to succeed to the presidency intra-term upon the death of William Henry Harrison.]]

Although the Presidential Succession Clause in Article II of the Constitution clearly provided for the vice president to take over the "powers and duties" of the presidency in the event of a president's removal, death, resignation, or inability, left unclear was whether the vice president became president of the United States or simply temporarily acted as president in a case of succession. Some historians, including Edward Corwin and John D. Feerick, have argued that the framers' intention was that the vice president would remain vice president while executing the powers and duties of the presidency until a new president could be elected.{{cite web | url=https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/05-presidential-succession.html | title=Presidential Succession | work=US Law | publisher=Justia | location=Mountain View, California | access-date=June 15, 2018 | archive-date=August 3, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803113608/https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/05-presidential-succession.html | url-status=live }}

The hypothetical debate about whether the office or merely the powers of the office devolve upon a vice president who succeeds to the presidency between elections became an urgent constitutional issue in 1841, when President William Henry Harrison died in office. Vice President John Tyler claimed a constitutional mandate to carry out the full powers and duties of the presidency, asserting he was the president and not merely a temporary acting president, by taking the presidential oath of office.{{cite web | title=John Tyler: Domestic Affairs | last=Freehling | first=William | date=October 4, 2016 | url=https://millercenter.org/president/tyler/domestic-affairs | publisher=Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia | location=Charllotesville, Virginia | access-date=June 15, 2018 | archive-date=November 26, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211126110932/https://millercenter.org/president/tyler/domestic-affairs | url-status=live }}

Many around him—including John Quincy Adams,{{cite journal | last=Schlesinger | first=Arthur M. Jr. | title=On the Presidential Succession | journal=Political Science Quarterly | date=Autumn 1974 | volume=89 | issue=3 | pages=475, 495–496 | doi=10.2307/2148451 | jstor=2148451}}{{cite journal | last=Rankin | first=Robert S. | title=Presidential Succession in the United States | journal=The Journal of Politics | date=Feb 1946 | volume=8 | issue=1 | jstor=2125607 | pages=44–56 | doi=10.2307/2125607| s2cid=153441210 }} Henry Clay{{cite journal | doi=10.1111/j.1741-5705.2005.00269.x | last=Abbott | first=Philip|author-link = Philip Abbott (academic)| title=Accidental Presidents: Death, Assassination, Resignation, and Democratic Succession | journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly | date=Dec 2005 | volume=35 | issue=4 | pages=627–645 | jstor=27552721}} and other members of Congress, along with Whig party leaders, and even Tyler's own cabinet—believed that he was only acting as president and did not have the office itself. He was nicknamed "His Accidency" and excoriated as a usurper. Nonetheless, Tyler adhered to his position, even returning, unopened, mail addressed to the "Acting President of the United States" sent by his detractors.{{cite book | last=Crapol | first=Edward P. | title=John Tyler: the accidental president | year=2006 | publisher=UNC Press Books | isbn=978-0-8078-3041-3 | oclc=469686610 | page=[https://archive.org/details/johntyleracciden00edwa/page/10 10] | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/johntyleracciden00edwa/page/10 }} Tyler's view ultimately prevailed when the House and Senate voted to accept the title "President", setting a precedent for an orderly transfer of presidential power following a president's death, one that was subsequently written into the Constitution as section 1 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

Even after the precedent regarding presidential succession in the event of the president's death was set, the part of the Presidential Succession Clause that provided for replacing a disabled president remained unclear. What constituted an "inability"? Who determined the existence of an inability? Did a vice president become president for the rest of the presidential term in the case of an inability; or was the vice president merely "acting as President"? In view of this lack of clarity, later vice presidents were hesitant to assert any role in cases of presidential inability.{{cite web | title=Essays on Amendment XXV: Presidential Succession | work=The Heritage Guide to the Constitution | last=Feerick | first=John | url=https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/amendments/25/essays/187/presidential-succession | publisher=The Heritage Foundation | access-date=June 22, 2018 | archive-date=August 22, 2020 | archive-url=https://archive.today/20200822232208/https://www.heritage.org/constitution/%23!/amendments/8/essays/161/cruel-and-unusual-punishment#!/amendments/25/essays/187/presidential-succession | url-status=unfit }} Two situations are noteworthy:

• On July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot; hit from behind by two bullets (one grazing his arm and the other lodging in his back).{{cite book | title=From Failing Hands: the Story of Presidential Succession | last1=Feerick | first1=John D. | last2=Freund | first2=Paul A. | date=1965 | url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=twentyfifth_amendment_books | publisher=Fordham University Press | location=New York City | pages=118–127 | lccn=65-14917 | access-date=June 24, 2018 | archive-date=November 20, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201120053125/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=twentyfifth_amendment_books | url-status=live }} The president wavered between life and death for 79 days after the shooting; it was the first time that the nation as a whole experienced the uncertainties associated with a prolonged period of presidential inability. Most disconcerting, especially for Garfield administration personnel and members of Congress, was the lack of constitutional guidance on how to handle the situation. No one was sure who, if anyone, should exercise presidential authority while the president was disabled; many urged Vice President Chester A. Arthur to step up, but he declined, fearful of being labeled a usurper. Aware that he was in a delicate position and that his every action was placed under scrutiny, Arthur remained secluded in his New York City home for most of the summer. Members of the Garfield Cabinet conferred daily with the president's doctors and kept the vice president informed of significant developments on the president's condition.
• In October 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke. Nearly blind and partially paralyzed, he spent the final 17 months of his presidency sequestered in the White House.{{cite web | last=Amber | first=Saladin | title=Woodrow Wilson: Life After The Presidency | date=October 4, 2016 | url=https://millercenter.org/president/wilson/life-after-the-presidency | publisher=Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia | location=Charllotesville, Virginia | access-date=June 23, 2018 | archive-date=January 14, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114215847/https://millercenter.org/president/wilson/life-after-the-presidency | url-status=live }} Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, the cabinet, and the nation were kept in the dark over the severity of the president's illness for several months. Marshall was pointedly afraid to ask about Wilson's health, or to preside over cabinet meetings, fearful that he would be accused of "longing for his place". Though members of both parties in Congress pledged to support him if he asserted his claim to the presidential powers and duties, Marshall declined to act, or to do anything that might seem ambitious or disloyal to Wilson.{{cite web | title=Thomas R. Marshall, 28th Vice President (1913–1921) | url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Thomas_Marshall.htm | work=Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress 1774{{snd}}Present | publisher=United States Congress | location=Washington, D.C. | access-date=June 23, 2018 | archive-date=March 4, 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230304054354/https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/general/one_item_and_teasers/file_not_found.htm | url-status=live }} At a time when the fight over joining the League of Nations was reaching a climax, and domestic issues such as strikes, unemployment, inflation and the threat of Communism were demanding action, the operations of the executive branch were once more hampered by the lack of constitutional basis for declaring that the president was unable to function.{{cite book | last=Cooper | first=John M. | author-link=John M. Cooper (historian) | title=Woodrow Wilson: A Biography | page=555 | date=2009 | publisher=Alfred A. Knopf | isbn=978-0-307-26541-8}}

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in September 1955, he and Vice President Richard Nixon developed an informal plan authorizing Nixon to assume some administrative duties during Eisenhower's recovery. Although it did not have the force of law, the plan helped to reassure the nation. The agreement also contained a provision whereby Eisenhower could declare his own inability and, if unable to do so, empowered Nixon, with appropriate consultation, to make the decision. Had it been invoked, Nixon would have served as acting president until the president issued a declaration of his recovery. Moved forward as a consequence of President Kennedy's November 1963 assassination, this informal plan evolved into constitutional procedure a decade later through Sections 3 and 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which resolved the uncertainties surrounding presidential disability.

Nine vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency intra-term, eight due to the president's death, and one due to the president's resignation from office.

Additionally, three vice presidents have temporarily assumed the powers and duties of the presidency as acting president, as authorized by Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment: George H. W. Bush did so once, on July 13, 1985; Dick Cheney did so twice, on June 29, 2002 and again on July 21, 2007; and Kamala Harris did so once, on November 19, 2021.{{cite news|last=Olsen|first=Jillian|title=How many other vice presidents have temporarily taken over presidential powers?|date=November 19, 2021|url=https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/history/presidential-transfer-of-power-biden-bush-reagan/67-17f1fa96-f44a-4050-a53c-593f55e4949f|publisher=WTSP|location=St. Petersburg, Florida|access-date=November 19, 2021}}{{cite news|last=Sullivan|first=Kate|title=For 85 minutes, Kamala Harris became the first woman with presidential power|date=November 19, 2021|url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/19/politics/kamala-harris-presidential-power/index.html|publisher=CNN|access-date=November 19, 2021|archive-date=May 10, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230510101502/https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/19/politics/kamala-harris-presidential-power/index.html|url-status=live}}

File:Inauguration of Gerald Ford as Vice-President, undated.jpg

While several vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency upon the death or resignation of the president, and a number of them have died or resigned, the offices of president and vice president have never been simultaneously vacant;{{efn-ua|Various friends and colleagues of Senator David Rice Atchison asserted that both offices were vacant on March 4–5, 1849, because the terms of President Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore began on March 4, but neither took their oath of office on that day{{snd}}following precedent as the day fell on a Sunday. The inauguration was held the next day, Monday, March 5.{{cite web | url=https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/about/past-inaugural-ceremonies/16th-inaugural-ceremonies/ | title=The 16th Presidential Inauguration: Zachary Taylor, March 5, 1849 | publisher=Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies | access-date=June 28, 2018 | archive-date=March 4, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304162320/https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/about/past-inaugural-ceremonies/16th-inaugural-ceremonies/ | url-status=dead }} Consequently, they considered David Rice Atchison, by virtue of being the last president pro tempore of the Senate in the out-going Congress, to have been Acting President of the United States during the day-long Interregnum in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act of 1792. Historians, constitutional scholars and biographers all dismiss the claim. Atchison did not take the presidential oath of office either, and his term as president pro tempore had expired on March 4.{{cite book | title=From Failing Hands: the Story of Presidential Succession | last1=Feerick | first1=John D. | last2=Freund | first2=Paul A. | date=1965 | url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=twentyfifth_amendment_books | publisher=Fordham University Press | location=New York City | pages=100–101 | lccn=65-14917 | access-date=June 24, 2018 | archive-date=November 20, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201120053125/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=twentyfifth_amendment_books | url-status=live }}}}{{efn-ua|1940 Republican presidential nominee Wendell Willkie and vice presidential nominee Charles L. McNary both died in 1944 (October 8, and February 25, respectively); the first, and to date only time both members of a major-party presidential ticket died during the term for which they sought election. Had they been elected, Willkie's death would have resulted in the Secretary of State becoming acting president for the remainder of the term ending on January 20, 1945, in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act of 1886.{{cite web|last=Brewer|first=F.|date=1945|title=Succession to the presidency|work=Editorial research reports 1945 (Vol. II)|publisher=CQ Press|location=Washington, D.C.|url=http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1945092000|url-access=registration|access-date=July 12, 2018|quote=If the Republican ticket had been elected in 1940, the plan of succession adopted in 1886 would probably have come into operation for the first time in 1944. Charles McNary, Republican candidate for Vice President, died on Feb. 25, 1944, With the death of Wendell Willkie, on Oct. 8, his Secretary of State would have been sworn in for the remainder of the term ending on Jan. 20, 1945.|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114220146/http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1945092000|url-status=live}}{{cite web|last=Feinman|first=Ronald L.|title=The Election of 1940 and the Might-Have-Been that Makes One Shudder|url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161880|date=March 1, 2016|publisher=History News Network|access-date=July 13, 2018|archive-date=January 14, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114220302/https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161880|url-status=live}}}} thus no other officer in the presidential line of succession has ever been called upon to act as president. There was potential for such a double vacancy when John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, as Vice President Andrew Johnson was also targeted (along with Secretary of State William Seward and possibly General Ulysses S. Grant) as part of Booth's plot to destabilize the Union government.{{cite web | title=Booth's Reason for Assassination | url=https://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24242 | website=Teachinghistory.org | publisher=Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University | location=Fairfax County, Virginia | access-date=January 18, 2019 | archive-date=January 19, 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190119174334/https://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24242 | url-status=live }} It again became a real possibility three years later, when, with the vice presidency vacant, Johnson as president was impeached by the House of Representatives and faced removal from office if convicted at trial in the Senate. Johnson was acquitted by a one-vote margin.{{cite web | title=The forgotten man who almost became President after Lincoln | url=https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-forgotten-man-who-almost-became-president-after-lincoln/ | date=April 15, 2018 | work=The constitution Daily | publisher=The National Constitution Center | location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | access-date=June 25, 2018 | archive-date=July 4, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180704213111/https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-forgotten-man-who-almost-became-president-after-lincoln/ | url-status=live }}

The 25th Amendment's mechanism for filling vice presidential vacancies has reduced the likelihood that the House speaker, Senate president pro tempore, or any cabinet member will need to serve as acting president. In October 1973, the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew made Speaker of the House Carl Albert first in line to succeed President Richard Nixon{{snd}}but only briefly, as Gerald Ford was sworn in as vice president on December 6, 1973.{{cite news | title=Speaker Albert Was Ready to Be President | last=Gup | first=Ted | date=November 28, 1982 | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/28/speaker-albert-was-ready-to-be-president/84ebaa61-9cf1-4817-836e-a993e7e0e980/ | newspaper=The Washington Post | access-date=June 25, 2018 | archive-date=July 28, 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180728131338/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/28/speaker-albert-was-ready-to-be-president/84ebaa61-9cf1-4817-836e-a993e7e0e980/ | url-status=live }} On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned the presidency, making Ford president; Albert was then again next in line, but only for the four months it took for Nelson Rockefeller to be nominated and confirmed as Ford's vice president.

Since 1789 there have been eighteen instances of the vice presidency becoming vacant; during those periods, the persons next in line to serve as acting president were:

In 2003, the Continuity of Government Commission suggested that the succession law has "at least seven significant issues ... that warrant attention", specifically:

1. The reality that all figures in the line of succession work and reside in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. In the event of a disaster such as a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack, it is possible that everyone on the list would be killed or incapacitated. For this concern, one of the listed people is selected as "designated survivor" and stays at an undisclosed secure location during certain events where all others are present, such as the State of the Union address.
2. Doubt that the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate are constitutionally eligible to act as president.
3. A concern about the wisdom of including the president pro tempore in the line of succession as the "largely honorific post traditionally held by the longest-serving senator of the majority party". For example, from January 20, 2001, to June 6, 2001, the president pro tempore was then-98-year-old Strom Thurmond.
4. A concern that the line of succession can force the presidency to abruptly switch parties mid-term, as the president, speaker, and the president pro tempore are not necessarily of the same party as each other.
5. A concern that the succession line is ordered by the dates of creation of the various executive departments, without regard to the skills or capacities of the persons serving as secretary.
6. The fact that, should a Cabinet member begin to act as president, the law allows the House to elect a new speaker (or the Senate to elect a new president pro tempore), who could in effect remove the Cabinet member and assume the office themselves at any time.
7. The absence of a provision where a president is disabled and the vice presidency is vacant (for example, if an assassination attempt simultaneously wounded the president and killed the vice president).{{cite web | url=http://www.continuityofgovernment.org/pdfs/FirstReport.pdf | title=The Continuity of Congress: The First Report of the Continuity of Government Commission | series=Preserving Our Institutions | page=4 | publisher=Continuity of Government Commission | location=Washington, D.C. | date=May 2003 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080625015852/http://www.continuityofgovernment.org/pdfs/FirstReport.pdf | archive-date=June 25, 2008 |url-status = dead| access-date=December 28, 2008 | via=Internet Archive}}

In 2009, the Continuity of Government Commission commented on the use of the term "Officer" in the 1947 statute,

{{blockquote|The language in the current Presidential Succession Act is less clear than that of the 1886 Act with respect to Senate confirmation. The 1886 Act refers to "such officers as shall have been appointed by the advice and consent of the Senate to the office therein named …" The current act merely refers to "officers appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Read literally, this means that the current act allows for acting secretaries to be in the line of succession as long as they are confirmed by the Senate for a post (even for example, the second or third in command within a department). It is common for a second in command to become acting secretary when the secretary leaves office. Though there is some dispute over this provision, the language clearly permits acting secretaries to be placed in the line of succession. (We have spoken to acting secretaries who told us they had been placed in the line of succession.){{cite web | title=The Continuity of the Presidency: The Second Report of the Continuity of Government Commission | url=http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2009/06_continuity_of_government/06_continuity_of_government.pdf | series=Preserving Our Institutions | page=34 | publisher=Continuity of Government Commission | location=Washington, D.C. | date=June 2009 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304060729/http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2009/7/06%20continuity%20of%20government/06_continuity_of_government.pdf | archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status = dead| via=WebCite | access-date=May 23, 2012}}}}

In 2016–2017, the Second Fordham University School of Law Clinic on Presidential Succession developed a series of proposals to "resolve succession issues that have received little attention from scholars and commissions" over the past several decades; its recommendations included:

• Removing legislators and several Cabinet members from the line of succession and adding four officials, or "Standing Successors", outside of Washington, D.C. The line of succession would be: {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|1}}—}}Secretary of State, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|2}}—}}Secretary of Defense, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|3}}—}}Attorney General, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|4}}—}}Secretary of Homeland Security, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|5}}—}}Secretary of the Treasury, {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|6}}—}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 1,}} {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|7}}—}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 2,}} {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|8}}—}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 3,}} and {{Nowrap|{{ordinal|9}}—}}Standing {{Nowrap|Successor 4;}}
• If legislators are not removed from the line of succession, only designate them as successors in cases where the president dies or resigns, not where he is disabled (to protect legislators from being forced to resign to act as president temporarily) or removed from office;
• Eliminate the "bumping provision" in the Succession Act of 1947;
• Clarify the ambiguity in the Succession Act of 1947 as to whether acting Cabinet secretaries are in the line of succession;
• That the outgoing president nominate and the Senate confirm some of the incoming president's Cabinet secretaries prior to Inauguration Day, which is a particular point of vulnerability for the line of succession;
• Establish statutory procedures for declaring 1) a dual inability of the president and the vice president, including where there is no vice president and 2) a sole inability of the vice president.{{cite journal | title=Second Fordham University School of Law Clinic on Presidential Succession, Fifty Years After the Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Recommendations for Improving the Presidential Succession System | journal=Fordham Law Review | url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5454&context=flr | volume=86 | issue=3 | year=2017 | pages=917–1025 | access-date=June 25, 2018 | archive-date=January 14, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210114220156/https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5454&context=flr | url-status=live }}

• Central Locator System
• Designated survivor
• List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots

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{{Reflist}}

• Baker, M. Miller (December 1, 2001). [https://fedsoc.org/commentary/publications/fools-drunkards-presidential-succession "Fools, Drunkards, & Presidential Succession"]. Federalist Society.
• Feerick, John D. (2011). [https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4695&context=flr "Presidential Succession and Inability: Before and After the Twenty-Fifth Amendment"]. Fordham Law Review. 79 (3): 907–949. Also available [https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol79/iss3/8 here].
• {{cite report|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|date=October 9, 2020|title=Presidential Elections: Vacancies in Major-Party Candidacies and the Position of President-Elect|publisher=Congressional Research Service|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44648|ref={{sfnRef|Neale|2020b}}|access-date=July 5, 2023}}
• {{cite report|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|date=October 6, 2020|title=Contingent Election of the President and Vice President by Congress: Perspectives and Contemporary Analysis|publisher=Congressional Research Service|ref={{sfnRef|Neale|2020a}}|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R40504|access-date=July 5, 2023}}
• {{cite report|last=Neale|first=Thomas H.|date=July 14, 2020|title=Presidential Succession: Perspectives and Contemporary Issues for Congress|publisher=Congressional Research Service|url=https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46450|ref={{sfnRef|Neale|2020a}}|access-date=July 19, 2023}}
• {{cite report|title=Preserving Our Institutions: The Continuity of the Presidency|date=June 2009|publisher=Continuity of Government Commission|url=https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf|ref={{sfnRef|Continuity of Government Commission|2009}}|access-date=May 18, 2023}}
• Whitney, Gleaves (2004). [https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ask_gleaves/57/ "Presidential Succession"]. Ask Gleaves. Paper 57. Grand Valley State University.

{{US presidential line of succession}}

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