Acting President of

the United States

An acting president of the United States is

an individual who legitimately exercises
the powers and duties of the president of
the United States even though that person
does not hold the office in their own right.
There is an established presidential line of
succession in which officials of the United
States federal government may be called
upon to take on presidential
responsibilities if the incumbent president
becomes incapacitated, dies, resigns, is
removed from office (by impeachment by
the House of Representatives and
subsequent conviction by the Senate)
during their four-year term of office; or if a
president-elect has not been chosen
before Inauguration Day or has failed to
qualify by that date.

Presidential succession is referred to

multiple times in the U.S. Constitution –
Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, as well as
the Twentieth Amendment and Twenty-
fifth Amendment. The vice president is the
only officeholder named in the
Constitution as a presidential successor.
The Article II succession clause authorizes
Congress to designate which federal
officeholders would accede to the
presidency if the vice president were
unable to do so, a situation which has
never occurred. The current Presidential
Succession Act was adopted in 1947 and
last revised in 2006. The order of
succession is as follows: the vice
president, the speaker of the House of
Representatives, the president pro
tempore of the Senate, and then the
eligible heads of the federal executive
departments who form the president's
Cabinet in the order of creation of the
department, beginning with the secretary
of state.

The vice president immediately assumes

the presidency in the event of the death,
resignation, or removal of the president
from office. Likewise, were a president-
elect to die during the transition period, or
decline to serve, the vice president-elect
would become president on Inauguration
Day. A vice president can also become the
acting president if the president becomes
incapacitated; should the presidency and
vice presidency both become vacant, the
statutory successor called upon would not
become president but would only be
acting as president. To date, three vice
presidents—George H. W. Bush (once),
Dick Cheney (twice), and Kamala Harris
(once)—have served as acting president.
No one lower in the presidential line of
succession has so acted.

Constitutional provisions

Eligibility

The qualifications for acting president are

the same as those for the office of
president. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of
the Constitution prescribes three eligibility
requirements for the presidency. At the
time of taking office, one must be a
natural-born citizen of the United States, at
least thirty-five years old, and a resident of
the United States for at least fourteen
years.[1]

Succession

Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 makes the

vice president first in the line of
succession. It also empowers Congress to
provide by law who would act as president
in the case where neither the president nor
the vice president were able to serve.[2]
Two constitutional amendments elaborate
on the subject of presidential succession
and fill gaps exposed over time in the
original provision:[3]

Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment

declares that if the president-elect dies
before their term begins, the vice
president-elect becomes president on
Inauguration Day and serves for the full
term to which the president-elect was
elected, and also that, if on Inauguration
Day, a president has not been chosen or
the president-elect does not qualify for
the presidency, the vice president-elect
acts as president until a president is
chosen or the president-elect qualifies. It
also authorizes Congress to provide for
instances in which neither a president-
elect nor a vice president-elect have
qualified.[4] Acting on this authority,
Congress incorporated "failure to
qualify" as a possible condition for
presidential succession into the
Presidential Succession Act of 1947.[5]

Sections 3 and 4 of the Twenty-fifth

Amendment provide for situations in
which the president is temporarily or
indefinitely unable to discharge the
powers and duties of their office.[6]
The former section enables the
president to voluntarily transfer
their powers and duties (but not the
office itself) to the vice president
(who becomes acting president), by
notifying the president pro tempore
of the Senate and the Speaker of
the House of Representatives. The
vice president remains acting
president until such a time that the
president is able to discharge their
powers and duties again.[7][8]

The latter section provides a

mechanism to remove the
president's powers and duties
without their consent. It is invoked
when the vice president and a
majority of the 15 Cabinet
secretaries write to the Senate
president pro tempore and the
House speaker to notify them that
the president is unable to discharge
their powers and duties. The vice
president then immediately
assumes the role of acting
president. Should the president
declare that they are still capable of
discharging their powers and
duties, the vice president and
Cabinet secretaries must write a
second letter. If this is received
within four days, then the matter is
debated and voted on by Congress
(with any attempt to permanently
install the vice president as acting
president requiring a two-thirds
majority of each house). If no such
letter is received within the time
limit, then the president reassumes
his powers and duties.[7][8]
History

Before the Twenty-fifth Amendment

1888 illustration of John Tyler

receiving notification of William Henry
Harrison's death from Chief Clerk of
the State Department Fletcher
Webster, April 5, 1841

On April 4, 1841, only one month after his

inauguration, William Henry Harrison died
and was the first U.S. president to die in
office.[9] Afterward, a constitutional crisis
ensued over the Constitution's ambiguous
presidential succession provision (Article
II, Section 1, Clause 6).[10]
Shortly after Harrison's death, his Cabinet
met and decided that John Tyler,
Harrison's vice president, would assume
the responsibilities of the presidency
under the title "Vice-President acting
President".[11] Instead of accepting this
proposed title, however, Tyler asserted that
the Constitution gave him full and
unqualified powers of the presidency and
had himself sworn in as president; this set
a critical precedent for the orderly transfer
of power following a president's death.[12]
Nonetheless, several members of
Congress, such as representative and
former president John Quincy Adams, felt
that Tyler should be a caretaker under the
title of "acting president", or remain vice
president in name.[13] Senator Henry Clay
saw Tyler as the "vice-president" and his
presidency as a mere "regency".[14]

Throughout Tyler remained resolute in his

claim to the title of president and in his
determination to exercise the full powers
of the presidency. The precedent he set in
1841 was followed subsequently on seven
occasions when an incumbent president
died prior to the presidential succession
being enshrined in the Constitution
through section 1 of the Twenty-fifth
Amendment.[10]
Though the precedent regarding
presidential succession due to the
president's death was set, questions
concerning presidential "inability"
remained unanswered, such as what
constituted an inability, who determined
the existence of an inability, and whether a
vice president becomes president for the
rest of the presidential term in the case of
an inability or if they are merely "acting as
president". Due to this lack of clarity, later
vice presidents were hesitant to assert any
role in cases of presidential inability.[15]

On two occasions, in particular, the

operations of the executive branch were
hampered due to the fact that there was
no constitutional basis for declaring that
the president was unable to function:

For 80 days in 1881, between the

shooting of President James Garfield in
July and his death in September.[16]
Congressional leaders urged Vice
President Chester Arthur to step up and
exercise presidential authority while the
president was disabled, but he declined,
fearful of being labeled a usurper. Aware
that he was in a delicate position and
that his every action was placed under
scrutiny, he remained secluded in his
New York City home for most of the
summer.[17]

October 1919 – March 1921, when

President Woodrow Wilson suffered a
debilitating stroke. Nearly blind and
partially paralyzed, he spent the final 17
months of his presidency sequestered in
the White House.[18] Vice President
Thomas R. Marshall, the cabinet, and
the nation were kept in the dark
concerning the severity of the
president's illness for several months by
First Lady Edith Wilson, the president's
personal physician, and his secretary.
Marshall was pointedly afraid to ask
 about Wilson's health, or to preside over
cabinet meetings, fearful that he would
be accused of "longing for his place."[19]

Since the Twenty-fifth Amendment

Proposed by the 89th Congress and

subsequently ratified by the states in 1967,
the Twenty-fifth Amendment also
established formal procedures for
addressing instances of presidential
disability and succession.[20] Its Section 3,
which allows the president to voluntarily
transfer his authority to the vice president,
has been invoked on four occasions by
three presidents. (Section 4, which
addresses the case of an incapacitated
president who is unable or unwilling to
issue voluntary declaration, has not been
activated since the amendment came into
force.)[16][21] Three vice presidents have
served as acting president on four
occasions, each one while the president
underwent a medical procedure under
general anesthesia.

Vice presidents who served as acting president

Acting
Date Start/end times President Procedure
president

George H. W. 11:28 am – Ronald Colon cancer

July 13, 1985
Bush 7:22 pm EDT Reagan surgery[22][23]

7:09 am –
June 29, 2002
9:24 am EDT George W.
Dick Cheney Colonoscopy[24][25]
7:16 am – Bush
July 21, 2007
9:21 am EDT

10:10 am –
Kamala Harris November 19, 2021 Joe Biden Colonoscopy[26]
11:35 am EST
See also
United States presidential line of
succession

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