Fordham Law Clinic Highlights Major Gaps in Presidential Succession Plans
March 23 2018 - 12:12PM
Business Wire
Report Reveals Lack of Procedures and Calls
for Seven Key Reforms
A Fordham Law School clinic report is calling for wide-ranging
improvements to the preparations for presidential succession and
inability scenarios, following a yearlong study under the
supervision of Professor John D. Feerick, who assisted in crafting
the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.
The Presidential Succession Clinic recommends that Congress, the
White House, and political parties implement critical reforms,
including revising and expanding succession laws, adding a mental
health professional to the White House Medical Unit, preparing for
disputes in Congress over a president’s inability, improving
presidential candidates’ health disclosures, and creating
procedures for replacing presidential candidates.
The clinic’s recommendations are summarized on a Fordham Law
webpage and outlined in a report in the Fordham Law Review.
The lack of procedures for vice presidential inabilities and
“dual inabilities” of the president and vice president leaves the
country without a clear way to provide for an acting president when
the president is disabled, according to the clinic’s findings. The
clinic report also asserts that the current line of succession is
of questionable constitutionality and could result in an unprepared
president. The clinic recommends that Congress pass laws to fix
these issues.
Feerick, who is a former dean of Fordham Law School, and Adjunct
Professor John Rogan supervised the work of the clinic’s 14 law
students during the 2016–2017 academic year.
The clinic conducted extensive research, including interviews
with more than 25 experts. Those experts included former Senator
Birch Bayh, then-CIA Director John Brennan, former White House
Physician Connie Mariano, former White House Counsel Fred Fielding,
congressional staffers, and distinguished scholars.
The clinic undertook an unprecedented study of how Congress
might resolve a dispute over the president’s capacity under Section
4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. Congress has only 21 days to reach
a resolution in such a scenario but has never considered how it
would go about determining whether the president is able to
govern.
In addition to discussing the clinic’s recommendations, the
clinic report describes White House planning for presidential
succession and inability, past presidents’ struggles with mental
illness and other disabilities, and the history of health issues in
modern presidential campaigns.
The release of the Presidential Succession Clinic report is the
latest development in Fordham Law School’s rich history with the
Twenty-Fifth Amendment, which began in 1963 with the Fordham Law
Review’s publication of an article by Feerick that influenced the
amendment’s drafting.
The law school’s history in this field, including the report
that the first Presidential Succession Clinic issued in 2012, is
captured in Fordham Law’s online Twenty-Fifth Amendment
Archive.
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Fordham Law SchoolCarrie Johnson,
212-636-7604cjohnson@fordham.edu