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The article states that had Carl Albert, then Speaker of the House, become President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon, he would have become "acting President". Why is this correct? "Acting President" is a term of art arising from the 25th Amendment and refers to a position filled by the Vice President when the incumbent President is alive but has told the Cabinet that he is temporarily prevented by circumstances from exercising his responsibilities as President or has been determined by a two-thirds majority of the President to be incapable of doing such. There is nothing in the Presidential Succession Act to state that any person succeeding to the Presidency under its terms and provisions is anything less than "President of the United States"; "Acting President" as an operative, legal term did not exist prior to the ratification of the 25th Amendment almost two decades later. 2600:1004:B158:AC7B:EDBE:44D7:839:9422 ( talk) 00:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree that a vice president who is acting president under either the 20th or 25th amendments cannot appoint a vice president under the 25th amendment, because the vice presidency is not vacant- the vice president remains vice president while being acting president. In contrast, I think it's an open question of whether anyone who becomes acting president via the Presidential Succession Act can appoint a vice president. Such an acting president would derive his position from Article II Section 1 Clause 6, not the 25th amendment, so one could argue that he has all enumerated powers for the presidency under the constitution, including nominating a vice president. The question then becomes what would happen if this were to occur. One possibility is that one or both houses of Congress refuse to recognize the acting president's authority to do this and refuse to confirm the nominee, which would certainly be their prerogative. But what if the nominee is confirmed and becomes vice president? Technically, if the presidency is vacant due to a "case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation" then once could argue that upon confirmation the vice president would immediately succeed to the presidency via the 25th amendment. Alternatively, one could make a logic argument that Section 1 and Section 2 of the 25th amendment were never meant to interact in this manner, and Section 1 refers to a vice president in office at the time the "case" occurs. In the latter case, an acting president might be interested in reestablishing the line of succession, if Congress approves. If the former understanding were accepted, an acting president might nominate a new vice president to take over the presidency who would at least gain the ratification of Congress, seeing himself merely as a caretaker who should be in office only as long as necessary to navigate a crisis. Or, it's not completely far-fetched that an acting president would nominate himself as vice president in order to fully become president via the 25th amendment and gain the ratification of Congress. The problem with this latter interpretation goes back to Article II, which states that an acting president serving because the presidency is vacant (not a inability/disability) shall serve until a president be elected. The "bumping" provisions on the current Presidential Succession Act violate this, another of its many faults. Therefore, there is a cogent constitutional argument that a new vice president cannot succeed an acting president, except due to the acting president's own inability, death, removal, or resignation. (Of course, the 25th amendment does not directly address the possibility of disability on the part of the vice president or an acting president.)
As for the highly unlikely case of an acting president serving under the 20th amendment due to an inability of both a president-elect and a vice president-elect to qualify, or perhaps the death of a president-elect and the failure of the vice president to qualify, it's again unclear. I would argue that if a vice president-elect exists but cannot serve (say, because he is 34 years of age), then vice presidency is not vacant and an acting president cannot appoint a replacement vice president. If there is no vice president, for instance because the Senate did not choose one in a contingent election, then I would argue the acting president could certainly choose to nominate a vice president. The Senate could then either choose to confirm the acting president's choice (along with the House) or succeed in fulfilling its contingent election, or continue to do nothing. In this way, the technical constitutional powers of an acting president are checked in this case by Congress, as all these scenarios are political questions that may not be decided in the same way for every set of circumstances.
We are running a bit afoul of WP:forum here, but this is useful and important discussion. If anyone is aware of actual scholarly discussion of these issues (as opposed to these hypothetical thought experiments I have shared), or sources from the writing of the 25th amendment that demonstrates a consideration of them at the time, please share! Mdewman6 ( talk) 19:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
@ Drdpw: Not interested in starting an edit war over this. Please provide justifications from WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX for your reversion. Upon reviewing the policy, it is unclear that using the president templates are extraneous and not preferable to the navigation template for Lists of acts of the United States Congress. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator ( talk) 13:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Why bother discussing their value/relevancy.Not sure I understand your previous comment. I am contending that your reversion does not follow the criteria and recommendations of WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX. The inclusion of the Presidential Succession Act article in the George Washington, Grover Cleveland, and Harry S. Truman navigation templates meets at least three of the criteria for good navboxes:
... someone reading this article is unlikely to be looking for other links about those presidents.Per WP:NAVBOX, one of the advantages of a navigation template is that "They provide an organized resource for readers who went through an article in some broad topic to find other articles on the same broad topic, rather than making those readers 'go fish' for articles wiki-linked in the text". I'm not persuaded that it is self-evident that someone reading the Presidential Succession Act article would be unlikely to be looking for information about the Presidents that signed the acts into law and the other decisions of their administrations. If someone interested in the history of U.S. public policy in general is reading an article about a specific law or policy enacted and effectuated by a specific presidential administration, it may very well be that such a reader would be interested in the other decisions of that presidential administration in general.
The presidents themselves are already linked... Including the navboxes here is just clutter.While the WP:NENAT section on "Individuals" notes that "Not every notable individual that has his or her own article ... needs a template or even a category named after them", it also states that "Templates for Presidents of the United States, in this case, navboxes, have enough articles about them or that are related to them for there to warrant a template." While WP:ATC recommends against including multiple templates in the same article that give the same information and templates that duplicate information already in included in the article body, the Washington, Cleveland, and Truman templates share only the link to the Presidential Succession Act article and are otherwise non-overlapping, and the Presidential Succession Act article includes only links to the biography articles rather than the Washington, Cleveland, and Truman presidency articles about their administrations.
I'm not persuaded that it is self-evident that someone reading the Presidential Succession Act article would be unlikely to be looking for information about the Presidents that signed the acts into law and the other decisions of their administrations, but haven't given me any reason to think they would be. Indeed, a casual reader (which is most of our readers) probably won't even notice who signed the bills into law, and will just be puzzled by these navboxes.
Sorry, but I don't see any additional arguments here. ... Indeed, a casual reader (which is most of our readers) probably won't even notice who signed the bills into law, and will just be puzzled by these navboxes.I did present additional arguments. I cited the WP:NENAT and WP:ATC policies because you argued that inclusion of the navboxes would qualify as clutter, but it is hardly clear that they are clutter per those WP:CLUTTER policies. I would add that you have presented your argument without evidence or citing a specific content or manual of style policy. Casual readers do skim articles as part of browsing the website, but I would note that browsing is what navigation templates help to facilitate so they do add value to the article for casual readers. Per WP:NAVBOX,
That is well and good, but not a justification for including the presidents's navboxes in this article. In general, biographical navboxes do not belong in legislation articles. Anyone reading this article who desires broader information about the presidents that signed the acts into law or the other decisions of their administrations can simply click on the inline link to the president.Per the recommendations about the advantages of navigation templates and criteria for good navigation templates that I've already cited, I would argue that your assertion that presidential administration navigation templates do not belong in articles about legislation is inconsistent with the WP:NAVBOX policy. To reiterate, the in-line links are to the biography articles and not the presidency articles, and creating separate navigation templates for presidential administrations separate from biography navigation templates for certain presidential administrations would probably qualify as clutter per WP:NENAT and WP:ATC. Your assertions are also made without reference to any content or manual of style policy. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator ( talk) 20:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
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The article states that had Carl Albert, then Speaker of the House, become President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon, he would have become "acting President". Why is this correct? "Acting President" is a term of art arising from the 25th Amendment and refers to a position filled by the Vice President when the incumbent President is alive but has told the Cabinet that he is temporarily prevented by circumstances from exercising his responsibilities as President or has been determined by a two-thirds majority of the President to be incapable of doing such. There is nothing in the Presidential Succession Act to state that any person succeeding to the Presidency under its terms and provisions is anything less than "President of the United States"; "Acting President" as an operative, legal term did not exist prior to the ratification of the 25th Amendment almost two decades later. 2600:1004:B158:AC7B:EDBE:44D7:839:9422 ( talk) 00:29, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree that a vice president who is acting president under either the 20th or 25th amendments cannot appoint a vice president under the 25th amendment, because the vice presidency is not vacant- the vice president remains vice president while being acting president. In contrast, I think it's an open question of whether anyone who becomes acting president via the Presidential Succession Act can appoint a vice president. Such an acting president would derive his position from Article II Section 1 Clause 6, not the 25th amendment, so one could argue that he has all enumerated powers for the presidency under the constitution, including nominating a vice president. The question then becomes what would happen if this were to occur. One possibility is that one or both houses of Congress refuse to recognize the acting president's authority to do this and refuse to confirm the nominee, which would certainly be their prerogative. But what if the nominee is confirmed and becomes vice president? Technically, if the presidency is vacant due to a "case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation" then once could argue that upon confirmation the vice president would immediately succeed to the presidency via the 25th amendment. Alternatively, one could make a logic argument that Section 1 and Section 2 of the 25th amendment were never meant to interact in this manner, and Section 1 refers to a vice president in office at the time the "case" occurs. In the latter case, an acting president might be interested in reestablishing the line of succession, if Congress approves. If the former understanding were accepted, an acting president might nominate a new vice president to take over the presidency who would at least gain the ratification of Congress, seeing himself merely as a caretaker who should be in office only as long as necessary to navigate a crisis. Or, it's not completely far-fetched that an acting president would nominate himself as vice president in order to fully become president via the 25th amendment and gain the ratification of Congress. The problem with this latter interpretation goes back to Article II, which states that an acting president serving because the presidency is vacant (not a inability/disability) shall serve until a president be elected. The "bumping" provisions on the current Presidential Succession Act violate this, another of its many faults. Therefore, there is a cogent constitutional argument that a new vice president cannot succeed an acting president, except due to the acting president's own inability, death, removal, or resignation. (Of course, the 25th amendment does not directly address the possibility of disability on the part of the vice president or an acting president.)
As for the highly unlikely case of an acting president serving under the 20th amendment due to an inability of both a president-elect and a vice president-elect to qualify, or perhaps the death of a president-elect and the failure of the vice president to qualify, it's again unclear. I would argue that if a vice president-elect exists but cannot serve (say, because he is 34 years of age), then vice presidency is not vacant and an acting president cannot appoint a replacement vice president. If there is no vice president, for instance because the Senate did not choose one in a contingent election, then I would argue the acting president could certainly choose to nominate a vice president. The Senate could then either choose to confirm the acting president's choice (along with the House) or succeed in fulfilling its contingent election, or continue to do nothing. In this way, the technical constitutional powers of an acting president are checked in this case by Congress, as all these scenarios are political questions that may not be decided in the same way for every set of circumstances.
We are running a bit afoul of WP:forum here, but this is useful and important discussion. If anyone is aware of actual scholarly discussion of these issues (as opposed to these hypothetical thought experiments I have shared), or sources from the writing of the 25th amendment that demonstrates a consideration of them at the time, please share! Mdewman6 ( talk) 19:23, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
@ Drdpw: Not interested in starting an edit war over this. Please provide justifications from WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX for your reversion. Upon reviewing the policy, it is unclear that using the president templates are extraneous and not preferable to the navigation template for Lists of acts of the United States Congress. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator ( talk) 13:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Why bother discussing their value/relevancy.Not sure I understand your previous comment. I am contending that your reversion does not follow the criteria and recommendations of WP:NAV and WP:NAVBOX. The inclusion of the Presidential Succession Act article in the George Washington, Grover Cleveland, and Harry S. Truman navigation templates meets at least three of the criteria for good navboxes:
... someone reading this article is unlikely to be looking for other links about those presidents.Per WP:NAVBOX, one of the advantages of a navigation template is that "They provide an organized resource for readers who went through an article in some broad topic to find other articles on the same broad topic, rather than making those readers 'go fish' for articles wiki-linked in the text". I'm not persuaded that it is self-evident that someone reading the Presidential Succession Act article would be unlikely to be looking for information about the Presidents that signed the acts into law and the other decisions of their administrations. If someone interested in the history of U.S. public policy in general is reading an article about a specific law or policy enacted and effectuated by a specific presidential administration, it may very well be that such a reader would be interested in the other decisions of that presidential administration in general.
The presidents themselves are already linked... Including the navboxes here is just clutter.While the WP:NENAT section on "Individuals" notes that "Not every notable individual that has his or her own article ... needs a template or even a category named after them", it also states that "Templates for Presidents of the United States, in this case, navboxes, have enough articles about them or that are related to them for there to warrant a template." While WP:ATC recommends against including multiple templates in the same article that give the same information and templates that duplicate information already in included in the article body, the Washington, Cleveland, and Truman templates share only the link to the Presidential Succession Act article and are otherwise non-overlapping, and the Presidential Succession Act article includes only links to the biography articles rather than the Washington, Cleveland, and Truman presidency articles about their administrations.
I'm not persuaded that it is self-evident that someone reading the Presidential Succession Act article would be unlikely to be looking for information about the Presidents that signed the acts into law and the other decisions of their administrations, but haven't given me any reason to think they would be. Indeed, a casual reader (which is most of our readers) probably won't even notice who signed the bills into law, and will just be puzzled by these navboxes.
Sorry, but I don't see any additional arguments here. ... Indeed, a casual reader (which is most of our readers) probably won't even notice who signed the bills into law, and will just be puzzled by these navboxes.I did present additional arguments. I cited the WP:NENAT and WP:ATC policies because you argued that inclusion of the navboxes would qualify as clutter, but it is hardly clear that they are clutter per those WP:CLUTTER policies. I would add that you have presented your argument without evidence or citing a specific content or manual of style policy. Casual readers do skim articles as part of browsing the website, but I would note that browsing is what navigation templates help to facilitate so they do add value to the article for casual readers. Per WP:NAVBOX,
That is well and good, but not a justification for including the presidents's navboxes in this article. In general, biographical navboxes do not belong in legislation articles. Anyone reading this article who desires broader information about the presidents that signed the acts into law or the other decisions of their administrations can simply click on the inline link to the president.Per the recommendations about the advantages of navigation templates and criteria for good navigation templates that I've already cited, I would argue that your assertion that presidential administration navigation templates do not belong in articles about legislation is inconsistent with the WP:NAVBOX policy. To reiterate, the in-line links are to the biography articles and not the presidency articles, and creating separate navigation templates for presidential administrations separate from biography navigation templates for certain presidential administrations would probably qualify as clutter per WP:NENAT and WP:ATC. Your assertions are also made without reference to any content or manual of style policy. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator ( talk) 20:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)