Question 0: Whether AOC can be Bernie’s running mate in 2020

[johnkarls]

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Question Zero -- Whether AOC can be Bernie’s running mate in 2020


This month’s Short Quiz began with a Question Zero “in order to get everyone thinking with an UNRELATED BUT AMUSING question” --

“Are the news media WRONG once again by claiming that AOC can NOT be Bernie Sanders’ running mate in 2020 because, since she was born 10/13/1989, she will NOT be 35 years of age on Inauguration Day 1/20/2021?”

Question Zero was accompanied by a “hint” to Google Henry Kissinger’s campaign to be elected Vice President in 1976 despite not being born a U.S. citizen.

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Answer

The short answer is that of course AOC can be Bernie’s running mate in 2020 even though she will NOT be 35 years old on Inauguration Day.

The longer answer???

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First please permit me to apologize for the “hint” to Google.

When encountering all of the ignorant media reports that AOC is ineligible to run for Vice President in 2020 because she will NOT be 35 years old on Inauguration Day, I immediately recalled Henry Kissinger’s campaign to run for Vice President in 1976 despite NOT being born in the U.S.

By way of background, everyone has a “photographic memory” and it is only a question of accessing it – for most people, accessing everything requires hypnosis under which they can even recall prenatal experiences which is why it became stylish more than half a century ago to play classical music for your fetus in utero.

Yours Truly has never had any difficulty recalling anything that is either “interesting” or “important.”

And Kissinger’s campaign to become Vice President qualified on both counts!!!

Unfortunately, when drafting this month’s Short Quiz, I thought it would be a simple matter to obtain all of the details about Kissinger’s campaign by Googling.

After all, anyone who has done any legal research at any time during the last half century is well-acquainted with Lexis-Nexis which is a sophisticated search engine for the texts of all court opinions AND the texts of news articles in major newspapers and magazines.

How sophisticated???

It permits so-called “Boolean” searches!!!

For example, all items that contain “vice” within 1 word of “president.”

And negatives like “no items that contain the word ‘whatever’”.

While permitting an INFINITE number of “nested parenthesis” so that, for example, all items are produced that contain “(((Kissinger w/3 vice) w/1 president) w/2 (United States or U.S. or US)) w/4 (constitution)”.

Accordingly, I apologize herewith to anyone who tried a Google search and failed!!!

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Technical Background Facts

Pursuant to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (as amended as recently as 2006), the order of succession to the Presidency is –

(1) Vice President of the U.S. – whose only duty under the Constitution is to preside over the U.S. Senate vis-à-vis which s/he also has the title “President of the Senate”

(2) Speaker of the House of Representatives

(3) President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate -- who presides over the Senate whenever the Vice President of the U.S. is “playing hooky” unless the President Pro Tempore appoints another Senator to preside

(4) The members of the President’s Cabinet starting with Secretary of State.

Important details –

FIRST, Vice President, Speaker and President Pro Tempore are posts created in the original constitution.

SECOND, the original constitution only provides for the Vice President to succeed to the Presidency if it is vacant. Indeed, the first Presidential Succession Act (enacted 1792) -- which addressed for the first time the possibility that both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency might become vacant simultaneously -- provided that the President Pro Tempore of the Senate would be second in line and the Speaker of the House would be third (the reverse of their current alignment).

THIRD, the original constitution did NOT provide for even the existence of specific cabinet officers much less their placement in the line of succession – George Washington created the first cabinet and it comprised SOLELY a Secretary of State, a Secretary of the Treasury, a Secretary of War, and an Attorney General.

FOURTH, placement of cabinet officers in the line of succession to the Presidency had to await later Succession Acts.

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Constitutional Requirements for Holding Office

(1) President – 35 years of age, natural-born citizen of the U.S., and resident of the U.S. for at least 14 years.

(2) Vice President – NONE!!!

(3) Speaker of the House – NONE (technically the Speaker does NOT even need to be an elected U.S. Representative!!!).

(4) President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate – NONE (technically the President Pro Tempore does NOT even need to be a Senator).

(5) Cabinet Officers – they (as well as many more-junior members of the Executive Branch and all of the judges/justices of the Judicial Branch) must be approved by the Senate.

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So Does Everyone In The Line Of Succession To The Presidency Have To Be Eligible To Be President???

Of course not!!!

Notable exceptions that leap readily to mind –

(1) Henry Kissinger who served as Secretary of State (4th in line) 9/22/1973 – 1/20/1977 despite being born in 1923 to a German Jewish family that fled Nazi Germany in 1938.

(2) Madeleine Albright who served as Secretary of State (4th in line) 1/23/1997 – 1/20/2001 despite being born in 1937 to Czechoslovakian-Jewish parents who converted to Catholicism in 1941 to shield their family from the Nazis (Madeleine Albright did NOT learn of her Jewish heritage until decades later) and the family did not immigrate into the U.S. until 1948.

Presumably if everyone ahead of Kissinger or Albright in the line of succession had disappeared, they would have been skipped over for the next person in line who was eligible to serve as President.

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Henry Kissinger’s 1976 Campaign for Vice President (AND DE FACTO PRESIDENT)

By way of background, the first so-called “reply” in Sec. 3 of www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org (Possible Topics for Future Meetings) to the currently-10th posting entitled “Kissinger the Negotiator: Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level (HarperCollins – 5/8/2018)” said, inter alia –

“Yes, there is a particular reason why I know a fair amount about nuclear diplomacy. During my 50 years of reading approximately 900 thick historical tomes/biographies, there have been two particular areas of interest. My all-time favorite historical hero was Winston Churchill, as a result of which I have probably read everything written by him or about him. But my all-time favorite subject was nuclear diplomacy -- learning at the foot (at least initially) of the master, Henry Kissinger -- as a result of which I have probably read everything written by him. The reason for the claim -- “learning at the foot (at least initially)”??? When I was a student at Harvard Law School 1964-1967, Henry Kissinger was a Professor in Harvard’s Political Science Department (before it began calling itself Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government). I’ve forgotten whether it was my first or second year at HLS, but a seminar on Nuclear Diplomacy was offered jointly by HLS and the Political Science Department…… at that time, Prof. Kissinger was the world’s recognized expert on nuclear diplomacy, having already authored the definitive book in the field -- “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy” (1957) -- as well as authoring books on subjects that were tangentially related -- “A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822” (1957); “The Necessity of Choice: Prospects for American Foreign Policy” (1961); and “The Troubled Partnership: A Re-Appraisal of the Atlantic Alliance” (1965 – which was available pre-publication for our course in working-copy form). Although I couldn’t take the course for credit because the first and second year curricula for HLS in those days permitted no elective courses, I attended every session of Prof. Kissinger’s course and probably spent more time on it than the rest of my courses combined. And never looked back!!! Probably reading everything ever written by Henry Kissinger and most erudite offerings by other experts in the field.”

Henry Kissinger was a protégé of Nelson Rockefeller, a member of the five famous third-generation Rockefeller brothers whose grandfather founded Standard Oil. Which was fragmented by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1911 anti-trust case into what would become 3 of the fabled “Seven Sisters” of the international oil industry (Exxon, Mobil, Chevron) plus Amoco and a few other smaller fragments such as Standard of Ohio which is the modern-day British Petroleum which was another of the fabled “Seven Sisters.” BTW Chase Bank was the Rockefeller family bank that went wherever in the world that the Standard Oil companies went.

Nelson Rockefeller served as Governor of New York 1/1/1959 - 12/18/1973.

He resigned 12/18/1973 to become Gerald Ford’s U.S. Vice President 12/19/1974 - 1/20/1977.

[Gerald Ford had become Nixon’s Vice President 12/6/1973 after Spiro Agnew resigned as VP, and then became President when Richard Nixon resigned 8/9/1974.]

Whereas Nixon had his famous “Saturday Night Massacre” 10/20/1973, Gerald Ford had his own nearly-as-famous “Halloween Massacre” on 11/4/1975 pursuant to which --

(1) Nelson Rockefeller, though remaining Vice President, was forced to withdraw his name from consideration to be Ford’s running mate in 1976 (Senator Bob Dole who would become Senate Minority/Majority Leader 1985-1996, would become Ford’s running mate in 1976);

(2) Henry Kissinger, though remaining Secretary of State, was fired as National Security Adviser (a post he assumed at the beginning of the Nixon Administration 1/20/1969 and which he had held concurrently with being Secretary of State since 9/22/1973);

(3) James Schlesinger was fired as Secretary of Defense; and

(4) William Colby was fired as Director of the CIA.

From 11/4/1975 until the Republican Convention August 16-19, 1976, there were constant rumors about whether President Ford was strong enough to even win the Republican nomination from Ronald Reagan, much less win the general election.

Since Kissinger’s mentor, Nelson Rockefeller, had withdrawn his name for consideration as Ford’s running mate, Kissinger GLEEFULLY fed speculation that the best way for Ford to survive his perceived-to-be-weak position would be to make Kissinger DE FACTO PRESIDENT!!!

Since there are NO CONSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS WHATSOEVER for Vice President, Kissinger would become Ford’s running mate.

HOWEVER, Ford and Kissinger would ADVERTISE THROUGHOUT THEIR JOINT CAMPAIGN that Kissinger would act as a Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. and Ford would act as an ephemeral Chairman of the Board of the U.S.

In other words, Kissinger would be De Facto President and Ford would be one of Kissinger’s advisers whom Kissinger would consult if he felt he needed advice.