Why should Senators be ahead of house members in the line of succession? The head of the house is ahead of the Senate PPT.
This is actually my idea as I suggested it to Peebs, so I should probably defend it:
-Senators basically have a higher "seniority" than House members. The very word comes from the same Latin root as "senior." There are less Senators, they serve for longer terms, and looking at career trajectories seems to be the higher rung on the ladder (although I could see how one would prefer the House). Therefore a Senator, on average, is probably a slightly better bet for an effective President than a Representative, although it would obviously come down to many more complex factors that couldn't be quantified in a list like this.
-With all that said, I think both chambers should, overall, be equal. Given that the Speaker is ranked ahead of the PPT in order of succession, I feel it balances it out for Senators 2-6 to be ranked ahead of Representatives 2-9--and remember that we will probably never, ever, ever need to go this far down the line of succession anyway, even with the rampant inactivity there's little chance the entire cabinet is absent.
My suggestion would be to
suspend the freaking rules and fast-track this to my desk, and then make a new bill so we can have congressional debate on how to fine tune this.
