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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Legal battle could put Speaker in Oval Office
Curt Anderson
WASHINGTON: Should a legal battle drag on for weeks between Al Gore and
George W Bush over the presidential election results, Americans could wake up
in late January with a man named J Dennis Hastert in the Oval Office.
Hastert, a 14-year member of Congress from Illinois, is the Republican
speaker of the House of Representatives. Under the Constitution, in certain
circumstances when the president and vice president cannot take office by the
January 20 inauguration date, the House speaker takes the reins of power for
the time being.
Taking it a step further, if there is no speaker, or that person doesn't meet
requirements to be president, the temporary White House occupant would be the
president pro tempore of the Senate. That person is 97-year-old Sen Strom
Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond won 39 electoral votes in a 1948 run for
the presidency as a "States Rights Democrat."
But the duty, unprecedented in the nation's history, most likely would fall
to Hastert, a former high school teacher and wrestling coach who took over as
speaker in 1998 for conservative firebrand Newt Gingrich and has tried to
steer a less confrontational course for the Republican Party congressional
majority.
"The House speaker would assume the position of acting president," said
Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington
University. "He would assume the position until any controversy is resolved."
Hastert also would have to resign from the House, forcing the majority
Republicans to choose a new speaker for the incoming Congress. "This is a
remarkably bitter prospect for any House speaker in exchange for being a
historical footnote," Turley said. "He would have to decapitate his political
career."
Still, Republicans could dodge that possibility by choosing someone else as
speaker and letting that person resign to become temporary president. And
nothing would prevent Hastert from running again for his Illinois seat once
the Gore-Bush race is finished.
Republican aides say the entire scenario is highly unlikely, and the speaker
is making no contingency plans for the White House. "We don't think it will
come to that," said Hastert spokesman John Feehery.
The Constitution makes the speaker of the House third in the line of
succession if both the president and vice president are unable to serve.
Under the 20th Amendment -- the one that limits presidents to a pair of
four-year terms -- the terms of President Bill Clinton and Vice President
Gore will end at noon on January 20, when presumably the new team would be
sworn in.
The amendment says that if the new president and vice president aren't yet
"qualified" for their offices -- a long legal challenge could delay the
Electoral College from the final act of the 2000 election, naming the
president -- the law should dictate who should temporarily take over. Federal
law identifies that person as the speaker, after he has quit the House.
A separate provision would have the presidential election decided by the
House of Representatives, with the Senate choosing the vice president. But
that would happen only if neither Bush nor Gore got the required 270
electoral votes. Florida would put either man over the top.(AP)
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