What if the designated survivor has a heart attack?

[Ferguson97]

The worst has happened: a terrorist attack during the State of the Union. The President, Vice President, all 435 members of Congress including the Speaker, the Supreme Court, and all of the cabinet (except for the designated survivor) are killed.

The secret service rushes the designated survivor to an undisclosed location; however, the stress of the situation is too much, and they suffer a heart attack and die.

Who is the President of the United States?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Legally: Congress designates its own designated survivors, who are absent during the State of the Union. One of those individuals would become Speaker and thus President.

This is actually a plot point in the TV show Designated Survivor.

[Ferguson97]

Legally: Congress designates its own designated survivors, who are absent during the State of the Union. One of those individuals would become Speaker and thus President.

This is actually a plot point in the TV show Designated Survivor.

I just started watching this show, which is what prompted the question. I couldn't stop thinking "what if he just had a heart attack right now?"

[NYDem]

Legally: Congress designates its own designated survivors, who are absent during the State of the Union. One of those individuals would become Speaker and thus President.

This is actually a plot point in the TV show Designated Survivor.

I just started watching this show, which is what prompted the question. I couldn't stop thinking "what if he just had a heart attack right now?"

The Presidency would be vacant until one of the posts was filled. Presumably this would occur when a Senate composed of gubernatorial replacement appointees convenes and elects a president. One imagines that under the circumstances that would happen as quickly as is physically practical.

[Vosem]

The Brookings Institute conducted a very elaborate study in 2009 on this question and related ones, and the answer is that the laws for things you'd hope would be clearly defined -- like whether acting secretaries are in the presidential line of succession, or not -- are actually very unclear.

In practice, anybody beyond the vice presidency who takes the position of President would most likely (...depending on legal interpretations) become Acting President and could be 'bumped' by the appearance of someone in the line ahead of him (this is the dominant interpretation; here is an incumbent Democratic Congressman bemoaning this); this means that the Speaker of the House, who could be elected by a quorum of remaining living members of the House -- of whom there would almost certainly be a few because some members of the House are always out of town, even setting aside the practice of designating congressional designated survivors* -- would become President. (Wouldn't this impact the functioning of the House? No, because it's already the case that the Speaker can designate a Speaker pro tempore to fill the position if they're traveling or something.)

Anyway, "any remaining living members of the House get to elect the President" seems like a decently good solution to me, since it means the new leader would at least have some democratic mandate. Unfortunately it's probably unconstitutional under the current conservative understanding of separation of powers, but if the entire Supreme Court is also taken out then that's very unlikely to come up.**

*A common reason for this is that these are members of the House who are receiving health treatment somewhere; after some attack like this the remaining House would probably be disproportionately old and sick, funnily enough.
**Possible real crisis moment if SCOTUS is taken out: circuit court split on 'who the President is'.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Brookings Institute conducted a very elaborate study in 2009 on this question and related ones, and the answer is that the laws for things you'd hope would be clearly defined -- like whether acting secretaries are in the presidential line of succession, or not -- are actually very unclear.

In practice, anybody beyond the vice presidency who takes the position of President would most likely (...depending on legal interpretations) become Acting President and could be 'bumped' by the appearance of someone in the line ahead of him (this is the dominant interpretation; here is an incumbent Democratic Congressman bemoaning this); this means that the Speaker of the House, who could be elected by a quorum of remaining living members of the House -- of whom there would almost certainly be a few because some members of the House are always out of town, even setting aside the practice of designating congressional designated survivors* -- would become President. (Wouldn't this impact the functioning of the House? No, because it's already the case that the Speaker can designate a Speaker pro tempore to fill the position if they're traveling or something.)

Anyway, "any remaining living members of the House get to elect the President" seems like a decently good solution to me, since it means the new leader would at least have some democratic mandate. Unfortunately it's probably unconstitutional under the current conservative understanding of separation of powers, but if the entire Supreme Court is also taken out then that's very unlikely to come up.**

*A common reason for this is that these are members of the House who are receiving health treatment somewhere; after some attack like this the remaining House would probably be disproportionately old and sick, funnily enough.
**Possible real crisis moment if SCOTUS is taken out: circuit court split on 'who the President is'.

The lack of Congressional survivors on the show I found quite unrealistic, the only ones there are are ones that have clear plot reasons to and thus some things are blatantly obvious, one bit that was supposed to be a major twist just had me thinking "knew it!"