Posted on 12/15/2002 1:47:17 PM PST by doug from upland
There's this bill sitting in committee somewhere:
Source: http://thomas.loc.gov/
Sponsor: Rep Sherman, Brad (introduced 2/27/2002)
Latest Major Action: 3/18/2002 Referred to House subcommittee.
Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution.
Title: To amend section 19 of title 3, United States Code, to allow the President to choose between possible successors in case of the event that, by reason of certain circumstances, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President.
SHORT TITLE(S) AS INTRODUCED:
Presidential Succession Act of 2002
OFFICIAL TITLE AS INTRODUCED:
To amend section 19 of title 3, United States Code, to allow the President to choose between possible successors in case of the event that, by reason of certain circumstances, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President.
STATUS:
2/27/2002: Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
3/18/2002: Referred to the Subcommittee on the Constitution.
COMMITTEE(S):
Committee/Subcommittee: Activity: House JudiciaryReferral Subcommittee on Constitution Referral
RELATED BILL DETAILS: NONE
AMENDMENT(S): NONE
COSPONSORS (1), ALPHABETICAL [followed by Cosponsors withdrawn]: Rep Davis, Danny K. - 2/27/2002
SUMMARY AS OF: 2/27/2002 -- Introduced.Presidential Succession Act of 2002 - Provides for the President to designate:
(1) the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives or Minority Leader of the House as the office that would discharge the duties of President if, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President; and
(2) the office of Majority Leader of the Senate or Minority Leader of the Senate as the office that would discharge the duties of the President if at the time when the office designated under clause (1) is to begin to discharge such duties, there is no individual holding such office or the individual holding such office fails to qualify as Acting President.
So if the president dies, he will get to decide who is successor is? Clearly, this bill was written by a democRAT. After all, dead people vote for democRATs all the time.
That must've been some other Arlen Specter, not the senator from Pennsylvania. I can't imagine him challenging the democratic point of view!
I'm not sure, but I believe that I heard the other day that Ted Stevens of Alaska will be the President pro tempore. He's got 33 years in the Senate.
Thanks for letting us know what transpired on TV. I have been to upset to even consider watching the TV.....all Lott all the time......just couldnt' take anymore. Nice to know there was someone out there speaking for Lott.
Okay, here is FReep opportunity. How about some flyers for his students showing them that their history professor is an idiot. We really need to nail him on this.
September 20, 2002-- Students in Julian Bond's popular civil rights history courses at the University of Virginia have always counted themselves lucky to be learning directly from a key participant in that history. Now their highly honored teacher has been selected for the National Civil Rights Museum's annual Freedom Award, whose previous recipients include Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Nelson Mandela and Colin Powell.
Bond will receive the award, given for significant contributions to civil rights, at a banquet at the Peabody Hotel on Oct. 23 in Memphis, where the civil rights museum is located.
"I am immensely honored to receive this award, and do so in the names, memories and unfinished works of thousands of the nameless and anonymous brothers and sisters who made the movement," Bond said.
Bond has been a civil rights activist and leader since his days as a student at Morehouse College in the late 1950s and early '60s. There, he led sit-ins that ended segregation at Atlanta's lunch counters, movie theaters and parks, and helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). For more than 20 years, he also served in the Georgia General Assembly. He has been highly visible as national chairman of the NAACP since 1968, working on numerous civil rights causes.
He "has for decades been an unwavering force in the fight for equality, justice and freedom for all Americans," said Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP.
A noted writer, teacher and lecturer, Bond is currently a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at American University in Washington, D.C., as well as professor of history at U.Va. He holds honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities and has served on many boards of organizations dedicated to civil rights and social change.
Contact: Bob Brickhouse, (434) 924-6856
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Contact the Office of University Relations at (434) 924-7116. Television reporters should contact the TV News Office at (434) 924-7550.
This lecture course will examine the history, philosophies, tactics, events, and personalities of the Southern movement for civil rights from 1900 through the late 1960s, with special concentration on the years from the mid-'40s forward.
The Southern movement--variously called the black struggle, the freedom fight, or the civil rights movement--was a black-lead mass movement which effectively ended legal segregation in the South by the middle 1960s. Through the leadership of various national and local organizations, and through anti-segregation campaigns directed by indigenous and extra-communal leadership figures who built on extensive networks of church, fraternal, and social and labor organizations, drawing strength from a protest community rooted in black America and created in response to white supremacy, the movement succeeded in eliminating legal segregation in the United States. The movement's well- and lesser well-known proponents and opponents and their stratagems will be examined.
Grades will be determined from two brief papers and a final examination and section participation.
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SPECIAL NOTE TO STUDENTS: Your professor is so stupid that he thinks Trent Lott is in the line of succession for the presidency. He does not realize that, until the new Congress convenes in January, the former KKK member Senator Robert "Sheets" Byrd, is the President Pro Temp and is in line for the presidency. Mr. Bond apparently has no problem with Senator Byrd, former KKK member because Senator Byrd is a Democrat.
A big hooray for Spector! Every once in awhile, he comes out with something dryly factual and good, and this is one of those times.
The bit about Lott being in succession was clearly one of the Dems "talking points", because I have heard it several times (most notably from Lieberman as mentioned before).
What I want to know is which idiot Dem made up these talking points? A clintoon? carvile? Brazile? Are they really that ignorant of our Constitution or do they just think most of us are too dumb to notice?
(And, yes, I know that Byrd will lose that spot when the GOP majority - at least I hope it still will be - Congress takes over in Jan. But Spector's point was right on!)
Welcome back to LATE EDITION. We're continuing our conversation on this sensitive and important subject with two special guests, the Republican senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, and the chairman of the NAACP, Julian Bond.
Senator Specter, let me read to you precisely the statement that your friend and colleague, Don Nickles, the Republican of Oklahoma, the former whip, put out, the number two in the Republican leadership.
He said this today: "Senator Lott has apologized profusely, and rightly so. His comments did not represent Republican ideals. I accept his apology.
"However, this is bigger than any single senator now. I am concerned Senator Lott has been weakened to the point that it may jeopardize his ability to enact our agenda and speak to all Americans.
"There are several outstanding senators who are more than capable of effective leadership, and I hope we have the opportunity to choose."
Do you think that Senator Nickles just issues a statement like this randomly? He is obviously very concerned about the capability of Senator Lott to lead in the aftermath of this uproar.
SPECTER: Well, you have to bear this in mind, Wolf, that Senator Nickles was a contestant for the leadership position against Senator Lott in our last election and decided not to run. So that has to be evaluated.
But Don Nickles has every right to say whatever he wants to. I would have thought it a little more in line if Senator Nickles had consulted with some of the rest of us, and if he wanted to take some action, would have gotten four other senators, a total of five, to have another meeting in a more formal way.
I do not believe that Trent Lott has lost the confidence of the Republican Caucus. And I say that because we know the man. When you talk about looking back at the 1948 Republican platform, I think that Mr. Bond has accurately pointed out that even Strom Thurmond's folks are away from that. When they made a statute to Strom in South Carolina recently, they left off his 1948 candidacy. And he approved the text of the statute.
So when Senator Lott appears on Black Entertainment tonight, tomorrow or Tuesday, whenever it is, I'd like to see him address the issues as to where he wants to take our caucus. And I would start with the hate crimes legislation.
BLITZER: We'll be watching that, but I want to bring back Julian Bond now.
And I want to read to you, Julian Bond, an excerpt from an editorial that appeared Friday in the Wall Street Journal. It said this: "It's also an unfortunate fact of politics that Republicans are up against a double standard on matters of race. Jesse Jackson can utter an anti-Semitic slur, "Hymie-town," but somehow still claim the moral authority to lecture Mr. Lott. Senator Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and the only senator of either party to vote against both African-American nominees to the Supreme Court, is exalted as a Democratic eminence gris."
What do you say about that?
BOND: I say, you know, when somebody issues anti-Semitic or bigoted statements of any kind, we need to be loud and clear in our condemnation.
But unlike Jesse Jackson, and unlike Senator Byrd, Senator Lott is two or three heartbeats away from the presidency, and he is the visible public spokesman of the Republican Party in the Senate of the United States.
And those 51 senators have to ask themselves, do they want to be counted on as supporting the kind of bigotry that Senator Lott has stood for all of his adult life, not just in this statement of last week, but as long ago as 1963 when he was in college, and in almost every year from that time until this?
This almost canine-like affection for this white supremacist group, I mean, that just defies any interpretation or any kind of explanation. It's beyond belief that he would persist in it over a period of years...
BLITZER: All right.
BOND: ... and then try to dodge it and say he didn't know anything about it.
BLITZER: Go ahead, Senator Specter.
SPECTER: Well, first of all, Senator Lott's not two or three heartbeats away from the presidency. After the vice president, it's the speaker of the House, and it's the president pro tempore. Today Senator Robert Byrd is president pro tempore of the United States Senate. He is really in line there.
But I don't think it does any good to talk about who said what in the past. The fact of life is that in our profession, in the government and in politics, we talk a lot, we talk too much, and all of us say foolish things. That is an occupational hazard. It happens to every one of us.
But this comment has been scrutinized -- and that's OK, you can scrutinize any comment. If you make a speech for an hour, you have to be prepared to have three words extracted. And in the broader context, there has been a resurrection of the failures of the Republican Party, and that is what has to be corrected. And I think that all this can do is perhaps to provide some good.
I think our caucus ought to focus -- the Republican Caucus ought to focus a lot more on education, on Title I, especially for disadvantaged youth...
BLITZER: All right.
SPECTER: ... and programs to give...
BLITZER: All right.
SPECTER: ... African-Americans -- just a minute, Wolf -- to give -- you've got three hours here -- give African-Americans a chance to go on to higher education.
I come back to that hate-crimes legislation. I think Trent Lott has the capacity to hit a home run on Black Entertainment Tonight, and I think that would stifle a lot of the objections.
BLITZER: All right. Unfortunately, we have to leave it right there.
Senator Specter, always good to have you on the program.
SPECTER: Nice to be with you. Thank you.
BLITZER: And Julian Bond of the NAACP, always good to have you on LATE EDITION as well.
BOND: Thank you.
BLITZER: Thanks to both of you for joining us.
That's all the time I have right now, but more of LATE EDITION coming up, our Final Round. Jonathan Karl will be having our panel in Washington. They'll be going through this issue, all the other important issues of the week.
Thanks very much for watching.
I'll be back tomorrow, both noon Eastern for Showdown: Iraq, as well as 5 p.m. Eastern on Wolf Blitzer Reports.
Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from the Persian Gulf.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Do you really have to wonder about that?
It's a constant thing with the DNC and their party flaks in the whore\media.
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