Patrick Leahy, third in line for the presidency, is hospitalized. Who else is in line?

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy was in a hospital on Friday, Oct. 14 after feeling unwell the day before.

The 82-year-old politician, who is wrapping up his last term in office, has held many titles over the years, including amateur photographer and chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Before he retires, in the event of a crisis, he could gain one more title: president of the United States.

Leahy, who was first elected to the Senate in 1974, is president pro tempore, making him third in line for the presidency or several “heartbeats” away from the Oval Office. A series of decades-old laws delineate a detailed order of presidential succession that includes more than a dozen politicians.

What is the line of succession?

When the U.S. Constitution was written in the late 18th century, it provided a sparingly short order of succession, making the vice president first in a line of one to take over for the president.

The 25th amendment, adopted in 1967, clarified the vice president’s role as the unequivocal successor to the presidency in the event of death, resignation or removal. It also allowed for the vice president to become acting president if the president is temporarily incapacitated.

A series of additional succession acts passed over the years elongated the list of replacements. One of these acts, passed in 1886, followed the unexpected death of President James Garfield, and it brought members of the president’s Cabinet into the line of succession, starting with the secretary of state.

The last of these acts, passed in 1947, brought the speaker of the House and president pro tempore of the Senate back into the line, ahead of the Cabinet, after they’d previously been taken out. The change reflected President Harry Truman’s belief that the Oval Office should be occupied by an elected official.

Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor, recently wrote that adding members of Congress to the line of succession could arguably be unconstitutional. Constitutional lawyer Richard Albert similarly writes that adding legislators to the order of succession is “dead wrong” because they don’t “possess the presidential timbre necessary to pilot the country in the aftermath of an attack nor [enjoy] the democratic legitimacy that only a national election can confer.”

As it stands now, 18 officials, all but two of whom are appointed by the president, are included in the presidential order of succession. First in line is Vice President Kamala Harris, followed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Pro Tempore of the Senate Patrick Leahy.

The elected officials are followed by 15 members of the president’s Cabinet in the following order: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becrerra, followed by six other Cabinet secretaries.

For security purposes, one of the members of the line of succession is always chosen as a designated survivor at inaugurations and State of the Union addresses, which involves them being brought to a secure location.

During the Ronald Reagan administration, with security in mind, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld helped create a classified program designed to keep the government running during nuclear war, according to The Atlantic. In some circumstances, the program, established with a secret executive order, bypassed the legal presidential line of succession. The program was abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Despite a series of laws and years of detailed planning, the line of presidential succession has, for the most part, remained an unused safeguard, meaning the chances of Leahy assuming the powers of the president are slim to none.

This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Patrick Leahy, third in line for the presidency, is hospitalized. Who else is in line?."