United States presidential line of succession
The United States presidential line of succession is the order in which officials of the United States federal government discharge the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States if the incumbent president becomes incapacitated, resigns, or is removed from office. Presidential succession is referred to multiple times in the U. S. Constitution – Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, as well as the 12th Amendment, 20th Amendment, 25th Amendment; the Article II succession clause authorizes Congress to provide for a line of succession beyond the vice president, which it has done on three occasions. The current Presidential Succession Act was adopted in 1947, last revised in 2006; the line of succession follows the order of Vice President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, President pro tempore of the Senate, the eligible heads of federal executive departments who form the president's Cabinet. The Presidential Succession Act refers to officers beyond the vice president acting as president rather than becoming president when filling a vacancy.
The Cabinet has 15 members, of which the Secretary of State is first in line. Those heads of department who are constitutionally ineligible to be elected to the presidency are disqualified from assuming the powers and duties of the presidency through succession. Since 1789, the vice president has succeeded to the presidency intra-term on nine occasions, eight times due to the incumbent's death, once due to resignation. No one lower in the line of succession has yet been called upon to act as president. Considered a settled issue during the late 20th century, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 demonstrated the potential for a decapitation strike that would kill or incapacitate multiple individuals in the presidential line of succession, in addition to many members of Congress and of the federal judiciary. In the years following the attacks, there were numerous wide-ranging discussions in Congress, among academics, within the public policy community about continuity of government concerns, including the existing constitutional and statutory provisions governing presidential succession.
These discussions are ongoing. One effort, that of the Continuity of Government Commission, a nonpartisan think tank, produced three reports, the second of which focused on the implicit ambiguities and limitations in the current succession act, contained recommendations for amending the laws for succession to the presidency; the table below details the current presidential order of succession as established by the 1947 presidential succession statute as amended. The order is determined by the offices. However, the individual in an office must still satisfy the constitutional requirements for the office in order to serve as Acting President. In the table, the absence of a number in the first column indicates that the incumbent is ineligible, or is of uncertain eligibility. In such cases, a note explains the detail. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution sets three qualifications for holding the presidency. To serve as president, one must: be a natural-born citizen of the United States.
A person who meets the above qualifications, would still be constitutionally disqualified from holding the office of president under any of the following conditions: Under the 22nd Amendment, no person can be elected president more than twice. The amendment specifies that if any eligible person serves as president or acting president for more than two years of a term for which some other eligible person was elected president, the former can only be elected president once. Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, upon conviction in impeachment cases, the Senate has the option of disqualifying convicted individuals from holding federal office, including that of President. Under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, no person who swore an oath to support the Constitution, rebelled against the United States, can become President. However, this disqualification can be lifted by a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress; the presidential line of succession is mentioned at 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.
The 12th Amendment includes a statement clarifying that, just as they would due to the president's death or disability, the powers and duties of the presidency devolve to the vice president if—following a presidential election where no candidate won an absolute majority of votes in the Electoral College—the House of Representatives has been unable to elect a president by the scheduled beginning of the president's term. 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, 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 authorizes Congress to provide for instances in which neither a president-elect nor a vice president-elect have qualified.
The 25th Amendment, Secti
President of the United States
The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. In contemporary times, the president is looked upon as one of the world's most powerful political figures as the leader of the only remaining global superpower; the role includes responsibility for the world's most expensive military, which has the second largest nuclear arsenal. The president leads the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP; the president possesses international hard and soft power. Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government, it vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law, alongside the responsibility of appointing federal executive, diplomatic and judicial officers, concluding treaties with foreign powers with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The president is further empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves, to convene and adjourn either or both houses of Congress under extraordinary circumstances. The president directs the foreign and domestic policies of the United States, takes an active role in promoting his policy priorities to members of Congress. In addition, as part of the system of checks and balances, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation; the power of the presidency has grown since its formation, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. Through the Electoral College, registered voters indirectly elect the president and vice president to a four-year term; this is the only federal election in the United States, not decided by popular vote. Nine vice presidents became president by virtue of a president's intra-term resignation. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 sets three qualifications for holding the presidency: natural-born U. S. citizenship.
The Twenty-second Amendment precludes any person from being elected president to a third term. In all, 44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, so he is counted twice, as both the 22nd and 24th president. Donald Trump of New York is the current president of the United States, he assumed office on January 20, 2017. In July 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, the Thirteen Colonies, acting jointly through the Second Continental Congress, declared themselves to be 13 independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. Recognizing the necessity of coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.
Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions and regulations, but not any laws, could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens; this institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some royal prerogatives to Congress; the members of Congress elected a President of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the office of President of the United States, it was a ceremonial position without much influence. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies.
With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another, they witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms; when the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia.
Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance (Rh
Cabinet of the United States
The Cabinet of the United States is part of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States. The Cabinet's role, inferred from the language of the Opinion Clause of the Constitution, is to serve as an advisory body to the President of the United States. Additionally, the Twenty-fifth Amendment authorizes the Vice President, together with a majority of certain members of the Cabinet, to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office". Among the senior officers of the Cabinet are the Vice President and the heads of the federal executive departments, all of whom—if eligible—are in the line of succession. Members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the President, who can dismiss them at will for no cause. All federal public officials, including Cabinet members, are subject to impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate for "treason and other high crimes and misdemeanors"; the President can unilaterally designate senior White House staffers, heads of other federal agencies as members of the Cabinet, although this is a symbolic status marker and does not, apart from attending Cabinet meetings, confer any additional powers.
The tradition of the Cabinet arose out of the debates at the 1787 Constitutional Convention regarding whether the president would exercise executive authority singly or collaboratively with a cabinet of ministers or a privy council. As a result of the debates, the Constitution vests "all executive power" in the president singly, authorizes—but does not compel—the president to "require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices"; the Constitution does not specify what the executive departments will be, how many there will be, or what their duties should be. George Washington, the first U. S. President, organized his principal officers into a Cabinet, it has been part of the executive branch structure since. Washington's Cabinet consisted of five members: himself, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.
Vice President John Adams was not included in Washington's Cabinet because the position was regarded as a legislative officer. It was not until the 20th century that Vice Presidents were included as members of the Cabinet and came to be regarded as a member of the executive branch. Presidents have used Cabinet meetings of selected principal officers but to differing extents and for different purposes. Secretary of State William H. Seward and Professor Woodrow Wilson advocated the use of a parliamentary-style Cabinet government, but President Abraham Lincoln rebuffed Seward, Woodrow Wilson would have none of it in his administration. In recent administrations, Cabinets have grown to include key White House staff in addition to department and various agency heads. President Ronald Reagan formed seven subcabinet councils to review many policy issues, subsequent Presidents have followed that practice. In 3 U. S. C. § 302 with regard to delegation of authority by the President, it is provided that "nothing herein shall be deemed to require express authorization in any case in which such an official would be presumed in law to have acted by authority or direction of the President."
This pertains directly to the heads of the executive departments as each of their offices is created and specified by statutory law and thus gives them the authority to act for the President within their areas of responsibility without any specific delegation. Under the 1967 Federal Anti-Nepotism statute, federal officials are prohibited from appointing their immediate family members to certain governmental positions, including those in the Cabinet. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, an administration may appoint acting heads of department from employees of the relevant department; these may be existing high-level career employees, from political appointees of the outgoing administration, or sometimes lower-level appointees of the administration. The heads of the executive departments and all other federal agency heads are nominated by the President and presented to the Senate for confirmation or rejection by a simple majority. If approved, they receive their commission scroll, are sworn in and begin their duties.
An elected Vice President does not require Senate confirmation, nor does the White House Chief of Staff, an appointed staff position of the Executive Office of the President. The heads of the executive departments and most other senior federal officers at cabinet or sub-cabinet level receive their salary under a fixed five-level pay plan known as the Executive Schedule, codified in Title 5 of the United States Code. Twenty-one positions, including the heads of the executive departments and others, receiving Level I pay are listed in 5 U. S. C. § 5312, those forty-six positions on Level II pay are listed in 5 U. S. C. § 5313. As of January 2016, the Level I annual pay was set at $205,700; the annual salary of the Vice President is $235,300. The salary level was set by the Government Salary Reform Act of 1989, which provides an automatic cost of living adjustment for federal employees; the Vice President receives th
Patricia Roberts Harris
Patricia Roberts Harris served in the American administration of President Jimmy Carter as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, United States Secretary of Health and Welfare. She was the first African American woman to serve in the United States Cabinet, the first to enter the line of succession to the Presidency, she served as United States Ambassador to Luxembourg under President Lyndon B. Johnson, was the first African-American woman to represent the United States as an ambassador. Roberts was born on May 31, 1924, in Mattoon, the daughter of railroad dining car waiter Bert Fitzgerald Roberts and Hildren Brodie. Patricia had one younger brother, known to his family as Mickey, her parents separated. She was raised by her mother and grandmother, she graduated summa cum laude from Howard University in 1945. While at Howard, she was elected Phi Beta Kappa and served as Vice Chairman of the Howard University chapter of the NAACP. In 1943, she participated in one of the nation's first lunch counter sit-ins.
She did postgraduate work in industrial relations at the University of Chicago from 1946 to 1949 and at American University in 1949. She worked as the Assistant Director of the American Council on Human Rights until 1953. There she met a member of the Howard law faculty, she was the first national executive director of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, of which she was a member. Roberts' was beginning to pursue a career in education, but saw limited opportunity because of segregation, her husband encouraged her to go to law school. Roberts received her J. D. from the George Washington University National Law Center in 1960, ranking number one out of a class of ninety-four students. Harris worked for the U. S. Department of Justice Her first position with the U. S. government was in 1960 as an attorney in the appeals and research section of the criminal division of the Department of Justice. There she struck up a friendship with Robert Kennedy, the new attorney general. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy appointed her co-chairman of the National Women's Committee for Civil Rights.
In 1961, Harris returned to her alma mater, Howard University, as an associate dean of students and law lecturer at Howard's law school. In 1963 she was elevated to a full professorship. In 1964, Harris was elected a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from the District of Columbia, she worked in Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign and seconded his nomination at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Soon after his victory, President Johnson appointed her Ambassador to Luxembourg from 1965 to 1967, she was the first African American woman named as an American envoy. She said, "I feel proud and grateful this President chose me to knock down this barrier, but a little sad about being the'first Negro woman' because it implies we were not considered before."She was named Dean of Howard University's School of Law in 1969, another first for a black woman. She resigned a month as Dean of Howard University’s School of Law when Howard University President James E. Cheek refused to support her strong stand against student protests.
Following her service as Dean of Howard's School of Law, she joined Fried, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, one of Washington, D. C.'s most prestigious law firms. In 1971, Harris was named to the board of directors of IBM. In addition she served on the boards of Chase Manhattan Bank, she continued making an impact on the Democratic Party when, in 1972, she was appointed chairman of the credentials committee and a member-at-large of the Democratic National Committee in 1973. A testimony to her effectiveness and her commitment to excellence came when President Jimmy Carter appointed her to two cabinet-level posts during his administration. Harris was appointed to the cabinet of President Jimmy Carter when he took office in 1977. At her confirmation hearing, Senator William Proxmire questioned whether Harris came from a background of too much wealth and power to be an effective Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Harris responded "I am the daughter of a Pullman car waiter. I am a black woman who eight years ago could not buy a house in parts of the District of Columbia.
I didn't start out as a member of a prestigious law firm, but as a woman who needed a scholarship to go to school. If you think I have forgotten that, you are wrong." Once confirmed, Harris became the first African American woman to enter the Presidential line of succession, at number 13. Between 1977 and 1979 she served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in 1979, she became Secretary of Health and Welfare, the largest Cabinet agency. After the Department of Education Organization Act came into force on May 4, 1980, the educations functions of the Department of Health and Welfare were transferred to the Department of Education. Harris remained as Secretary of the renamed Department of Health and Human Services until Carter left office in 1981; because the department had changed names, as opposed to disbanding with new department being created, she did not face Senate confirmation again after the change. Harris unsuccessfully ran for Mayor of Washington, D. C. in 1982, losing the September 14 primary election to incumbent mayor Marion Barry.
That year, she was appointed a full-time professor at the George Washington National Law Center. In 1967, Lord Snowdon photographed Harris for Vogue at the United Nations. In her spare time, Harris enjoyed baking. Patricia married Wi
Robert C. Weaver Federal Building
The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building is a 10-story office building in Washington, D. C. owned by the federal government of the United States. Completed in 1968, it serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Built by the General Services Administration, it is a prime example of Brutalist architecture; the structure is named for Dr. Robert C. Weaver, the first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the first African American Cabinet member; the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 26, 2008. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy established the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space and charged it with developing new guidelines for the design of federal office buildings. On May 23, 1962, the Ad Hoc Committee issued a one-page report, Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, which established these new design principles; the document encouraged federal planners to consider and build structures that "reflect the dignity, enterprise and stability of the American National Government" and "embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought."In 1965, major revisions to federal housing policy resulted in the creation of the U.
S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; the United States Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 on August 10, 1965, which President Johnson called "the single most important breakthrough" in federal housing policy since the 1920s; the legislation expanded funding for existing federal housing programs, added new programs to provide rent subsidies for the elderly and disabled. Just four weeks on September 9, President Johnson signed legislation establishing the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Design work on the future HUD building began immediately. Karel Yasko, Assistant Commissioner for Design and Construction in the U. S. General Services Administration, oversaw the design process in accordance with the Ad Hoc Committee's guidelines. In 1946, the Congress had passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency and provided for clearance of land and redevelopment funds in the capital.
After a decade of discussion, public comment, negotiations with landowners and developers, the Southwest Urban Renewal Plan was approved in November 1956. In part, the plan cleared the way for GSA to build new large federal office buildings between Independence Avenue SW and Southeast Freeway to its south; the HUD building, the only office building south of the railroad tracks, was designed to be a showcase for the Ad Hoc Committee's design guidelines. Internationally known architect Marcel Breuer submitted the building's winning design. Breuer became the building's lead architect, assisted by his associate Herbert Beckhard and the firm of Nolen-Swinburne. Breuer drew on many of his previous buildings for inspiration for HUD Headquarters, he had built curvilinear precast concrete buildings before for UNESCO's world headquarters in Paris and the IBM Research Center in La Gaude. The curvilinear shape allowed the maximum amount of natural light to reach the maximum number of offices; this design reflected much of the architectural style adopted during the early 1960s in Washington, D.
C.. The final design resembles that of a giant capital letter "X" with an elongated spine and four bilateral, curving arms; the four arms created four spaces. The northern space was given over to gigantic HVAC vents; the western space was planted with grass and with low concrete benches lining the semicircular space. GSA's design specifications required that extensive underground parking be incorporated into the building. Breuer designed a lightweight, six-acre plaza to fit as a sort of roof over the underground parking garage; the plaza surface would be covered in masonry "stones", with a curving driveway to lead vehicular traffic into the garage entrance and exit. An offshoot of the driveway came up to the front doors to allow the limousines of high-ranking visitors to pull up directly to the building's front doors; because the weight of the plaza/roof had to be kept light, no plantings were envisioned for the plaza. Although the plaza was devoid of plants, its shape and vast expanse were designed to relate aesthetically to the nearby National Mall.
Deep-set windows in rectilinear shapes, a Breuer trademark, were planned for the facade. The window frames were made of precast concrete; the building was the first Breuer-designed structure in the United States to use a precast concrete facade, this was the first federal building to be built of precast concrete. The facade was designed to be load-bearing, with the panels on the second and fourth floors designed to carry the weight of the building; the window frames on the eighth and tenth floors were thinner, because although they were not load-bearing they had to contain HVAC piping. The panels on the middle floors required the least amount of fabrication, according to architect Herbert Beckhard, as they
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
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