New Impeachment Order of Succession
I come back to my earlier conclusion on the matter of how Presidential Succession oughta work in cases of Impeachment, which I’ve altered to align a bit with Richard Nixon’s stated reason for quitting “does not have a large enough base in Congress to be effective” (but really, the case is more along the lines of “Public Loss of Confidence”):
There oughta be a law. A president in his second term who cannot muster an approval rating over 40 percent for a month’s duration shall be removed. He shall be replaced by a member of the same party who has successfully positioned himself apart from the president. (The second part of this law will help clear up a wee bit the Woeful state of the Senate — where a party wraps themselves tightly around their man in the White House, Legislature becoming Parliament, political Independence Lost for fear of how a weakened Party figurehead will tear your political fortunes down. In the current climate… may I suggest Chuck Hagel (Soitenly not goddamned John McCain.) I’ll work out the mechinations of this new rule later.
The basic problem with the current order of succession at the moment is that the first person in line, the vice president, is now more than ever an integral part of the Presidential Administration, and bound down with the same corruption causes that afflict the first president. I wonder how easily it will be from henceforth to elect a vice president into the presidency after the eight long years of the administration. (Then again, Dick Nixon and Al Gore are both saddled with the regret of not simply arguing that they will be a continuation of two popular presidents, both feeling like they needed to distinguish themselves from Dwight Eisenhower or Clinton Penis.) The problem comes into glaring light with the current occupants: Dick Cheney is the most powerful vice president in American history.
At least in the current line of succession we go to the Legislative Body after president and vice president. Okay in a pinch. But face it: we’ve evolved into a bit of a Parliamentary System, and thus… need a parliamentary solution. Margaret Thatcher is thrown overboard because the British public just becomes sick of her. The same is supposed to be about to happen to Tony Blair. But the vote of no confidence is simply met by reshuffling the party head.
Which is why I go with the “Stay Inside the Party” model. Let’s face it: the other party lost the last election, and thus does not deserve to sit in the president. I have suggested a threshold before on how a nation might replace the beleagured second-term president with his loser in the election prior: if the scandal that undid the president had been uncovered before the election, would it have been enough to unseat him? If so, the other guy/gal gets to take his seat. If not, and we are meeted out by the under-40 rule, you go to the “Find someone within the party” rule. The “Member of the Same Party” rule, thus, is a sort of do-over for the governing party. They can reconfigure themselves around their new leader, and bury the old decayed bones of corruption met by the former head. The ship of state is not burrowed under.
The 40-threshold does not apply to the first term, to allow for a president to mete out his learning curve and the public to figure him/her out.