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acroyearI was curious about the 25th Amendment (the current rules for succession) and Article 1. Specifically, since so much of the House and the Senate rules are defined by the Constitution as to be decided upon by those houses, I was wondering if those two "officers" (Speaker of the House and President pro tempere of the Senate) actually exist in the Constitution or only by house rules.
It wouldn't be the first time that an amendment used a term that's not actually in the original document: the 14th amendment refers to rights of "Citizens" and yet there is no official Constitutional definition of what is or isn't required to be a Citizen. It is defined by law, but not by Constitution. There's reasons the Bill of Rights was specific about "no person" rather than "no citizen" - using a loophole in vocabulary should be no excuse for violating the spirit of the intentions of the Bill of Rights authors...even though it has, repeatedly - FISA is a clear violation of that spirit, for example.
But on the two house offices, yes, both are mentioned in the Constitution, and the houses are free to decide who that person is through their own rules and traditions.
I note that the VP is different from any other Presidential appointment: he must be approved by BOTH houses, not just the Senate.
It wouldn't be the first time that an amendment used a term that's not actually in the original document: the 14th amendment refers to rights of "Citizens" and yet there is no official Constitutional definition of what is or isn't required to be a Citizen. It is defined by law, but not by Constitution. There's reasons the Bill of Rights was specific about "no person" rather than "no citizen" - using a loophole in vocabulary should be no excuse for violating the spirit of the intentions of the Bill of Rights authors...even though it has, repeatedly - FISA is a clear violation of that spirit, for example.
But on the two house offices, yes, both are mentioned in the Constitution, and the houses are free to decide who that person is through their own rules and traditions.
I note that the VP is different from any other Presidential appointment: he must be approved by BOTH houses, not just the Senate.
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Date: 2009-01-23 02:57 am (UTC)One interesting thing is that section 4 of amendment XXV where the President has to inform the Speaker and the President pro tempore of the written disability and then the notification when the disability is no longer in effect has been used several times whenever the President has to be unconcious for a medical procedure.
I remember when it was done for President Reagan not only when he was in surgery after the assassination attempt but when he had the surgery later in his presidency (when Nancy tried to cover up his half grey hair from the press)