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for the event of a double vacancy was passed in 1792, and it has been altered twice in American
history. While it is now well-established that the vice president immediately takes over in the
event of the death of a president, the nation has been without a vice president eighteen times in
its history, more than once for several years at a time. Only providence has prevented a double
vacancy from occurring. To a certain extent, the Twenty-fifth Amendment has ameliorated the
danger of a double vacancy. Whereas presidents such as Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt,
and Harry Truman served the vast majority of at least one term without a vice president, the
Constitution now allows the president to solve the problem of such a vacancy by nominating a
new vice president, making a double vacancy highly unlikely.
Highly unlikely, however, is not impossible. Although there was always a danger during
the Cold War that the federal government could be decimated in a nuclear exchange, it took the
terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to drive home the lingering vulnerability of the nation’s
leadership. Fanciful scenarios like those depicted in Tom Clancy novels no longer seem far-
fetched. In a quiet subplot to the more visible investigations of the 9-11 attacks, various forces
have attempted to address short-comings in the current law. Legislation currently working its way
through Congress would catapult Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to eighth in the
presidential line of succession. In 2002 California Representative Brad Sherman introduced H.R.
3816, the Presidential Succession Act of 2002, which sought to revise the current law by
allowing the president to designate majority or minority leaders in the House and Senate to serve
as second and third in the line of succession, depending on partisan affiliation (Witcover 2002,
21A; Sherman 2002). The American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution have created
the Continuity of Government Commission, which is studying the issue of continuity of
Convention