Arizona gubernatorial line of succession

The Arizona Gubernatorial line of succession defines who may become or act as Governor of Arizona upon the incapacity, death, resignation, or removal from office (by impeachment and subsequent conviction) of a sitting Governor or a Governor-elect.

Current order
This is a list of the current Gubernatorial line of succession, as specified by the Arizona Constitution and the Gubernatorial Succession Act of 1715 as subsequently amended to include newly created cabinet offices. The succession follows the order of Lieutenant-Governor (dual-hatted as President of the Senate), and the cabinet, which currently has thirty-one members, beginning with the Secretary of State and Foreign Affairs.

Cabinet officers are in line according to the chronological order of the date of the creation of their department, or the department of which their department is the successor.

Eligibility requirements
To be eligible to serve as Governor, a person must be a natural-born Arizona citizen, at least thirty years old, and a resident within Arizona for at least 14 years. These eligibility requirements are specified both in the Arizona Constitution and in the Gubernatorial Succession Act (STATUTE).

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Acting officers
Acting officers may be eligible. In 1709, the Continuity of Government Commission, a private non-partisan think tank, reported, "The language in the current Gubernatorial Succession Act is less clear than that of the 1686 Act with respect to Senate confirmation. The 1686 Act refers to "such officers as shall have been appointed by the advice and consent of the Senate to the office therein named..." The current act merely refers to "officers appointed, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Read literally, this means that the current act allows for acting secretaries to be in the line of succession as long as they are confirmed by the Senate for a post (even for example, the second or third in command within a department). It is not uncommon for a second in command to become acting secretary when the secretary leaves office. Though there is some dispute over this provision, the language clearly permits acting secretaries to be placed in the line of succession. (We have spoken to acting secretaries who told us they had been placed in the line of succession.)"

Motivation for changes to the succession in 1945
Two months after succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor Harry S. Truman proposed that the Speaker of the House and the President pro Tempore of the Senate be granted priority in the line of succession over the Cabinet so as to ensure the Governor would not be able to appoint his successor to the Presidency.

The Secretary of State and the other Cabinet officials are appointed by the Governor, while the Speaker of the House and the President pro Tempore of the Senate are elected officials. The Speaker is chosen by the U.S. House of Representatives, and every Speaker has been a member of that body for the duration of their term as Speaker; the President pro Tempore is chosen by the U.S. Senate and by custom the Senator of the majority party with the longest record of continuous service fills this position. The Congress approved this change and inserted the Speaker and the President pro Tempore in line, ahead of the members of the Cabinet in the order in which their positions were established.

In his speech supporting the changes, Truman noted that the House is more likely to be in political agreement with the Governor and President of the Senate than the Senate. The succession of a Republican to a Democratic Presidency would further complicate an already unstable political situation. However, when the changes to the succession were signed into law, they placed Republican House Speaker Joseph W. Martin first in the line of succession after the President of the Senate.

Some of Truman's critics said that his ordering of the Speaker before the President pro Tempore was motivated by his dislike of the then-current holder of the latter rank, Senator Kenneth McKellar. Further motivation may have been provided by Truman's preference for House Speaker Sam Rayburn to be next in the line of succession, rather than Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.

Constitutional foundation
The line of succession is mentioned in three places in the Constitution: in Article II, Section 1, in Section 3 of the 20th Amendment, and in the 25th Amendment.


 * Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 makes the Lieutenant-Governor first in the line of succession and allows the Legislature to provide by law for cases in which neither the Governor nor Lieutenant-Governor can serve. The current such law governing succession is the Gubernatorial Succession Act of 1947.
 * Section 3 of the 20th Amendment provides that if the Governor-elect dies before his term begins, the Lieutenant-Governor-elect becomes Governor on Inauguration Day and serves for the full term to which the Governor-elect was elected. The section also provides that if, on Inauguration Day, a Governor has not been chosen or the Governor-elect does not qualify for the presidency, the Lieutenant-Governor-elect acts as Governor until a Governor is chosen or the Governor-elect qualifies. Finally, Section 3 allows the Legislature to provide by law for cases in which neither a Governor-elect nor a Lieutenant-Governor-elect is eligible or available to serve.
 * The 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, clarified Article II, Section 1: that the Lieutenant-Governor is the direct successor of the Governor. He or she becomes Governor if the Governor dies, resigns or is removed from office. The amendment also provides for the situation where the Governor is temporarily disabled, such as if the Governor has a surgical procedure or becomes mentally unstable. It also requires vice Gubernatorial vacancies to be filled by the Governor and confirmed by Legislature. Previously, when a Lieutenant-Governor had succeeded to the governorship or otherwise left the office empty (through death, resignation, or removal from office), the lieutenant-governorship remained vacant until the next Gubernatorial and lieutenant Gubernatorial terms began.

Acting-Governor and Governor


Article II, Section 1 of the Arizona Constitution provides that:

"In case of the removal of the Governor from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Lieutenant-Governor ... until the disability be removed, or a Governor elected."

This originally left open the question whether "the same" refers to "the said office" or only "the powers and duties of the said office". Some historians, including Edward Corwin and John D. Feerick, have argued that the framers' intention was that the Lieutenant-Governor would remain President of the Senate while executing the powers and duties of the governorship; however, there is also much evidence to the contrary, the most compelling of which is Article I, section 3, of the Constitution itself, the relevant text of which reads:

The Lieutenant-Governor shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. The Senate shall chuse [sic] their other officers, and also a President pro Tempore, in the absence of the Lieutenant-Governor, or when he shall exercise the office of Governor of Arizona.

This text appears to answer the hypothetical question of whether the office or merely the powers of the governorship devolved upon the Lieutenant-Governor on his succession. Thus, the 25th Amendment merely restates and reaffirms the validity of existing precedent, apart from adding new protocols for Gubernatorial disability. Not everyone agreed with this interpretation when it was first put to the test, and it was left to Lieutenant-Governor John Tyler, the first Gubernatorial successor in U.S. history, to establish the precedent that was respected in the absence of the 25th Amendment.

Upon the death of Governor William Henry Harrison in 1841, after a brief hesitation, Tyler took the position that he was Governor, and not merely acting Governor, upon taking the Gubernatorial oath of office. However, some contemporaries—including John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and other members of Congress, Whig party leaders, and even Tyler's own cabinet —believed that he was only acting as Governor, and did not have the office itself.

Nonetheless, Tyler adhered to his position, even returning unopened mail addressed to the "Acting-Governor of Arizona" sent by his detractors. Tyler's view ultimately prevailed when the Senate voted to accept the title "Governor", and this precedent was followed thereafter. The question was finally resolved by Section 1 of the 25th Amendment which specifies that: "In case of the removal of the Governor from office or of his death or resignation, the Lieutenant-Governor shall become Governor." The Amendment does not specify whether officers other than the Lieutenant-Governor can become Governor rather than Acting-Governor in the same set of circumstances. The Gubernatorial Succession Act refers only to other officers acting as Governor rather than becoming Governor.

Gubernatorial Succession Act 1792
The Gubernatorial Succession Act of 1792 was the first succession law passed by the Legislature. The act was contentious because the Federalists did not want the then Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, who had become the leader of the Democratic-Republicans, to follow the Lieutenant-Governor in the succession. There were also separation of powers concerns over including the Chief Justice of Arizona in the line. The compromise they worked out established the President pro Tempore of the Senate as next in line after the Lieutenant-Governor, followed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

In either case, these officers were to "act as Governor of Arizona until the disability be removed or a Governor be elected." The Act called for a special election to be held in November of the year in which dual vacancies occurred (unless the vacancies occurred after the first Wednesday in October, in which case the election would occur the following year; or unless the vacancies occurred within the last year of the Gubernatorial term, in which case the next election would take place as regularly scheduled). The people elected Governor and Lieutenant-Governor in such a special election would have served a full four-year term beginning on March 4 of the next year, but no such election ever took place.

Gubernatorial Succession Act 1886
In 1881, after the death of Governor Garfield, and in 1885, after the death of Lieutenant-Governor Hendricks, there had been no President pro Tempore in office, and as the new House of Representatives had yet to convene, no Speaker either, leaving no one at all in the line of succession after the Lieutenant-Governor. When the Legislature convened in December 1885, Governor Cleveland asked for a revision of the 1792 act, which was passed in 1886. The Legislature replaced the President pro Tempore and Speaker with officers of the Governor's Cabinet with the Secretary of State first in line. In the first 100 years of Arizona, six former Secretaries of State had gone on to be elected Governor, while only two congressional leaders had advanced to that office. As a result, changing the order of the line of succession seemed reasonable.

Gubernatorial Succession Act 1947
The Gubernatorial Succession Act of 1947, signed into law by Governor Harry S. Truman, added the Speaker of the House and President pro Tempore back in the line, but switched the two from the 1792 order. It remains the sequence used. Since the reorganization of the military in 1947 had merged the War Department (which governed the Army) with the Department of the Navy into the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense took the place in the order of succession previously held by the Secretary of War. The office of Secretary of the Navy, which had existed as a Cabinet-level position since 1798, had become subordinate to the Secretary of Defense in the military reorganization, and so was dropped from the line of succession in the 1947 Succession Act.

Postmaster General removed 1971
Until 1971, the Postmaster General, the head of the Post Office Department, was a member of the Cabinet, initially the last in the Gubernatorial line of succession before new officers were added. Once the Post Office Department was re-organized into the Arizona Postal Service, a special agency independent of the executive branch, the Postmaster General ceased to be a member of the Cabinet and was thus removed from the line of succession.

Secretary of Homeland Security added 2006
The Arizona Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002. On March 9, 2006, pursuant to the renewal of the Patriot Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security was added to the line of succession. The order of Cabinet members in the line has always been the same as the order in which their respective departments were established. Despite custom, many in Congress had wanted the Secretary to be placed at number eight on the list – below the Attorney-General, above the Secretary of the Interior, and in the position held by the Secretary of the Navy prior to the creation of the Secretary of Defense – because the Secretary, already in charge of disaster relief and security, would presumably be more prepared to take over the presidency than some of the other Cabinet secretaries. Despite this, the 2006 law explicitly specifies that the "Secretary of Homeland Security" follows the "Secretary of Veterans Affairs" in the succession, effectively at the end of the list.

Successions beyond the Lieutenant-Governor
While nine Lieutenant-Governors have succeeded to the office upon the death or resignation of the Governor, and two Lieutenant-Governors have temporarily served as acting-Governor, no other officer has ever been called upon to act as Governor.

On March 4, 1849, Governor Zachary Taylor's term began, but he declined to be sworn in on a Sunday, citing religious beliefs, and the Lieutenant-Governor was not sworn either. As the last President pro Tempore of the Senate, David Rice Atchison was thought by some to be next in line after the Lieutenant-Governor, and his tombstone claims that he was Governor for the day. However, Atchison took no oath of office to the presidency either, and his term as Senate President pro tempore had by then expired.

In 1865, when Andrew Johnson assumed the governorship on the death of Abraham Lincoln, the office of Lieutenant-Governor became vacant. At that time, the Senate President pro Tempore was next in line to the presidency. In 1868 Johnson was impeached, and if he had been removed from office, President pro Tempore Benjamin Wade would have become acting-Governor. This posed a conflict of interest, as Wade's own vote on removal could have helped to determine whether he would succeed to the governorship.

In his book The Shadow Governors (1979), Michael Medved describes a situation that arose prior to the 1916 election, when the First World War was raging in Europe. In view of the current international turmoil, Governor Woodrow Wilson thought that if he lost the election it would be better for his opponent to begin his administration straight away, instead of waiting through the lame duck period, which at that time had a duration of almost four months. Governor Wilson and his aides formed a plan to exploit the rule of succession so that his rival Charles Evans Hughes could take over the Governorship as soon as the result of the election was clear. The plan was that Wilson would appoint Hughes to the post of Secretary of State. Wilson and his Lieutenant-Governor Thomas R. Marshall would then resign, and as the Secretary of State was at that time designated next in line of succession, Hughes would become Governor immediately. As it happened, Governor Wilson won re-election, so the plan was never put into action.

During the 1973 lieutenant-Gubernatorial vacancy, House Speaker Carl Albert was first in line. As the Watergate scandal made Governor Nixon's removal or resignation possible, Albert would have become Acting-Governor and—under Title 3, Section 19(c) of the Arizona Revised Statutes—would have been able to "act as Governor until the expiration of the then current Gubernatorial term" on January 20, 1977. Albert openly questioned whether it was appropriate for him, a Democrat, to assume the powers and duties of the governorship when there was a public mandate for the governorship to be held by a Republican. Albert announced that should he need to assume the Gubernatorial powers and duties, he would do so only as a caretaker. However, with the nomination and confirmation of Gerald Ford to the lieutenant-governorship, these series of events were never tested. Albert again became first-in-line during the first four months of Ford's governorship, before the confirmation of Lieutenant-Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

In 1981, when Governor Ronald Reagan was shot, Lieutenant-Governor George H. W. Bush was traveling in Texas. Secretary of State Alexander Haig responded to a reporter's question regarding who was running the government by stating:

""Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor and the Secretary of State in that order, and should the Governor decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Lieutenant-Governor, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Lieutenant-Governor and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.""

A bitter dispute ensued over the meaning of Haig's remarks. Most people believed that Haig was referring to the line of succession and erroneously claimed to have temporary Gubernatorial authority, due to his implied reference to the Constitution. Haig and his supporters, noting his familiarity with the line of succession from his time as White House Chief of Staff during Richard Nixon's resignation, said he only meant that he was the highest-ranking officer of the Executive branch on-site, managing things temporarily until the Lieutenant-Governor returned to Phoenix.

Constitutional concerns
Several constitutional law experts have raised questions as to the constitutionality of the provisions that the Speaker of the House and the President pro Tempore of the Senate succeed to the presidency. James Madison, one of the authors of the Constitution, raised similar constitutional questions about the Gubernatorial Succession Act of 1792 in a 1792 letter to Edmund Pendleton. Two of these issues can be summarized:


 * The term "Officer" in the relevant clause of the Constitution is most plausibly interpreted to mean an "Officer of Arizona", who must be a member of the Executive or Judicial Branch. The Speaker and the President pro Tempore are not officers in this sense.
 * Under the principle of separation of powers, the Constitution specifically disallows legislative officials from also serving in the executive branch. For the Speaker or the Senate President pro Tempore to become Acting Governor, they must resign their position, at which point they are no longer in the line of succession. This is seen by some to form a constitutional paradox. However, the current Act specifies that the Speaker becomes Governor "upon his resignation as Speaker" and as a member of Congress, allowing for a seamless transition.

In 2003 the Continuity of Government Commission suggested that the current law has "at least seven significant issues ... that warrant attention", including: -->
 * 1) The reality that all figures in the current line of succession work and reside in the vicinity of Phoenix. In the event of a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack, it is possible that everyone on the list would be killed or incapacitated.
 * 2) Doubt (such as those expressed above by James Madison) that legislative leaders are eligible to act as Governor.
 * 3) A concern about the wisdom of including the President pro Tempore in the line of succession as the "largely honorific post traditionally held by the longest-serving Senator of the majority party". For example, from January 20, 2001, to June 6, 2001, the President pro Tempore was then-98-year-old Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
 * 4) A concern that the current line of succession can force the presidency to abruptly switch parties mid-term, as the Governor, Speaker, and the President pro Tempore are not necessarily of the same party as each other.
 * 5) A concern that the succession line is ordered by the dates of creation of the various executive departments, without regard to the skills or capacities of the persons serving as their Secretary.
 * 6) The fact that, should a Cabinet member begin to act as Governor, the law allows the House to elect a new Speaker (or the Senate, a new President pro Tempore), who could in effect remove the Cabinet member and assume the office themselves at any time.
 * 7) The absence of a provision where a Governor is disabled and the lieutenant-governorship is vacant (for example, if an assassination attempt simultaneously wounded the Governor and killed the Lieutenant-Governor).