Spoilers Designated Survivor

[stardream]

This hit a bit close to home. First of all I the 'survivor' would probably be taken to somewhere like Mount Weather for a while. He would have everything he needs there...even an underground Oval Office.

I knew a guy who attended the State of the Unions...stuck in a side room, wearing a hazmat suit during the whole thing. That has nothing to do with the program, this show just reminded me of it.

It was ok but I have to admit I enjoyed the bits with the FBI and the investigation more than I did the political side of it. I might stick with it for a while.

 

[Star Wolf]

Another aspect that I really hope the show addresses instead of simply hand waving: All three branches of the government were abolished. Obviously, the immediate focus is on restoring the presidency, and in short order, the cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the latter of which was briefly referred to). Presumably the majority of Congress was present at the State of the Union; that's up to 535 elected offices suddenly vacated. What contingencies are in place for restoring the House and Senate? And until they're restored, the Supreme Court will also remain empty. Just imagine the confirmation hearings for filling up the entirety of the court by a single president.

Speaking of which, I don't recall any specific references to which political party Kirkman is part of. Perhaps they'll go the Veep route, although that seems unlikely.


This is one of my biggest worries. I hope they allow the show to use this dramatic event as the starting point and let the story naturally grow from there, instead of artificially enforcing more and more ridiculous plots.
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The one institution not to worry about immediately is the Joint Chiefs, every military unit in existence knows who is going to take over if the top falls. Now in play is whenever we get the episode where President Kirkman relieves General Buck Turgidson.

I imagine the biggest real life fight would be the state Governor appointed US Senators trying to stop the placement of the Kirkman Court for generations. I wouldn't worry about the future of the show. As soon as President Kirkman, being such a good man writer's surrogate, is elected the premise is moot and the show becomes West Wing II.

 

[bigdaddy]

I enjoyed the second episode a lot more than the first. But I hope it's not 'New president is weak for 3/4th of the show, then strong right at the end" every week.

 

[Snaploud]

It's interesting that the show to chose to have the entire Supreme Court attend the State of the Union. In recent years, some of the conservative justices have taken to avoiding that event. Thomas, Alito, and Scalia missed the last one, for instance.

 

[Snaploud]

I imagine the biggest real life fight would be the state Governor appointed US Senators trying to stop the placement of the Kirkman Court for generations.

The best solution, in my opinion, would be for Congress to temporarily (under one of their Constitutional prerogatives) limit the number of Justices to 3 with the intent to raise that number by 2 each time a new president takes office (until we get back to 9) or, alternatively, a set period of every 4, 6, or 8 years (again, until we get back to 9).

 

[bigdaddy]

It's interesting that the show to chose to have the entire Supreme Court attend the State of the Union. In recent years, some of the conservative justices have taken to avoiding that event. Thomas, Alito, and Scalia missed the last one, for instance.

Maybe that's because of the fact they can't keep their dumbass opinions to themselves.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I was surprised when they didn't have Maggie Q's character tell Kirkman her theory when he visited the capitol. I also liked the fact that her boss didn't totally blow her off and forbid her from continuing her investigation.

Both of those moments were breaths of fresh air. In a "typical" show, Maggie Q's character wouldn't have hesitated to speak her mind in direct opposition to her boss and/or have her boss blindly ignoring her logically thinking. But not only that, her boss raises good points that she needs to work on to prove her theory. I hope we see more of that.

 

[tenmei]

Both of those moments were breaths of fresh air. In a "typical" show, Maggie Q's character wouldn't have hesitated to speak her mind in direct opposition to her boss and/or have her boss blindly ignoring her logically thinking. But not only that, her boss raises good points that she needs to work on to prove her theory. I hope we see more of that.

In some respects it paralleled the Kirkman plot - 'Don't come to me when you're 75% sure, come to me when you're 100% sure ...'

 

[Trekker4747]

The best solution, in my opinion, would be for Congress to temporarily (under one of their Constitutional prerogatives) limit the number of Justices to 3 with the intent to raise that number by 2 each time a new president takes office (until we get back to 9) or, alternatively, a set period of every 4, 6, or 8 years (again, until we get back to 9).

And that would keep the SCOTUS just a impotent as it is now and keep it that way for over a decade, probably 2 decades if Presidents retain two terms. Now, the numbers are odd numbers meaning it's possible for a majority rule on issues but the issues would be weakened by having such small numbers voting on them. Say another big issue, like on the level of Roe v. Wade or the same-sex marriage issue or the ACA were to come across the SCOTUS and there's only three Justices there to make the decision. That decision being based on a paltry number like 3 would weaken the foundation the ruling is based and just give people plenty of room to argue against the decision and challenge it.

One of the President's job is to make appointees to the SCOTUS, which is an important part of our government, to vacant slots. Well, there's now likely 9 vacant slots. Hopefully Kirkman is able to install 9 Justices right away through something akin to an "executive order" in lieu of there being no functioning Congress and as Congress is re-built the Justices can be vetted or the process of verifying them, or new selections can begin.

In a case like this it wouldn't be a time to play the dumbass partisan politics like those that are going on right now with our government; because in a case like this we're pretty much looking at a very crippled government where apparently state governors are seeing us as having no government and are free to do as they wish. (Which, sadly, is all to realistic given the behavior of some state leaders over the last 8 years)

It's a time for state leaders, whatever remains of Congress, the remaining cabinet and military leaders to rally behind the President, who is there through a legal and existing process; though not elected he is the president in the only way that matters -by the way the government operates, and help him get the country running again once the immediate crisis and PR battles are over. The government needs to operate again and the SCOTUS is a part of that process so needs to be rebuilt, fully, rather than stretching out rebuilding it for over a decade.

 

[bigdaddy]

We don't have a functioning Congress now so maybe Obama should just executive order a new judge in? That wouldn't fly at all.

 

[Snaploud]

And that would keep the SCOTUS just a impotent as it is now and keep it that way for over a decade, probably 2 decades if Presidents retain two terms.

That's incorrect. A 3 member decision would have the force of law of a 9 member decision if Congress sets the number of Justices at 3. The reason why we're currently experiencing problems is that there are 8 members of the court and Congress has most recently set the number of Justices at 9 (plus the fact that the 8 members of the Court are ideologically divided).

There haven’t always been nine justices on the court.

The U.S. Constitution established the Supreme Court but left it to Congress to decide how many justices should make up the court. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number at six: a chief justice and five associate justices. In 1807, Congress increased the number of justices to seven; in 1837, the number was bumped up to nine; and in 1863, it rose to 10. In 1866, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which shrank the number of justices back down to seven and prevented President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. Three years later, in 1869, Congress raised the number of justices to nine, where it has stood ever since. In 1937, in an effort to create a court more friendly to his New Deal programs, President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to convince Congress to pass legislation that would allow a new justice to be added to the court—for a total of up to 15 members—for every justice over 70 who opted not to retire. Congress didn’t go for FDR’s plan.

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-u-s-supreme-court

 

[Trekker4747]

So, it takes an act of Congress to change the number of justices, meaning in DS that the number of needed judges is still 9, giving President Kiefer nine slots to fill. And while a 3-justice panel would have as much force of law as a 5 or 9 justice panel, you know given the current political climate (which, arguably, we could translate to the the DS universe) it'd be just one thing for extreme members of a party to point to in order to try and invalidate a decision or say it means less. The "activist judges" notion is already being used to try and justify circumventing same-sex marriage rulings and the ACA. They can't legally do it, but it's just one thing they can moan over and use down the road to bring another case before the SCOTUS to try and overturn the former decision.

Regardless ad it currently stands President Kiefer has 9 slots to fill and as President he's entitled to make the necessary selections, though there being no functioning Congress makes it a problem to really seat any.

And, yeah, the problems we have now is due to the ideologically divide court and that there's an even number meaning a ruling is either a win or a tie as opposed to a win or a loss, a tie only coming should a justice recuse himself. But a three-justice Supreme Court is, I feel, fairly weak and just opens the door for problems down the road.

In the show President Kiefer's goal should be to try and get the government running again, allowing the FBI and military to look into the bombings so it can be decided on who to attack. He needs to install a new cabinet and begin appointing justices and hope the states can get their act together to install new congressional members who, hopefully, will see the need for the government to get operating again and not challenge the justices too much. Given what we've seen of Kiefer's character, though he may be a Democrat, but he seems willing to play on both sides of the table and reach across the aisle if he needs to (the relationship he tried establishing with the congressional DS) so I'd assume he'd select as ideologically neutral justices as he can, but of course that's speculation.

It's that sort of stuff at this point I'm interested in seeing where the show goes, the who did the bombing stuff too me is mostly secondary and needs to be wrapped up as quickly as possible. I really don't see the need for it to be any terrorist organization or what-have you they should've just made it due to faulty infrastructure chalking the whole thing up to a plot device being used to make the situation of an "every man" becoming president in an instant.

Be interesting to see how the show maintains itself over the course of a multiple seasons should it last that long, which given how it wants to treat the passage of time and the average length of a series should more than cover President Kiefer's term(s) in office.

Which sort of brings me to a question, it would seem Kiefer's character isn't wealthy. He's living in DC and was a prominent enough person to get the cabinet position, but he's not wealthy. While homes in the DC area are very, very, expensive (a complete dump that's the very definition of a fixer-upper can go for almost half a million dollars) it's unlikely that he's that financially well off. Running for office is very, very, ridiculously expensive when it comes to promotion and advertising and while PACs and donations can cover some of the costs, candidates usually spend quite a bit of cash out-of-pocket to run. He likely will get some support from the DNC but I'm not sure how much they can support him or donate given the various election and campaign laws.

I guess my big question is: When it's time for him to run for election; how is he going to pay for it?

 

[Snaploud]

Another potential compromise would be to elevate to the Supreme Court (in one up-or-down package, if possible) the 9 most senior members of the 11-active-member United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (which in our universe would be 5 Democratic-appointed judges and 4 Republican-appointed judges). They handle a lot of the same types of issues, and that court is already used by many as a stepping-stone for becoming a member of the Supreme Court.

 

[Trekker4747]

Something like that would probably work best in restaffing the SCOTUS, I would think instead of all from DC but from the various circuit courts around the country. Spread out the need to re-appoint across the country. It really is fascinating to think about this kind of stuff and just really let it sink in on how much an attack like this would really hurt the country's ability to function.

It's almost, not quite but almost, an apocalyptic event where you *would* have your extremist governors and other leaders out there refusing to follow Kirkman's orders and choices since he's not an elected president. Even a re-established Congress would likely feel the same way. If in our world they fight tooth-and-nail against Obama and likely will against Clinton, one can only imagine what they'd do someone who's in office due to line of succession being wiped out and he's the last run on the ladder.

For me I'd like to see a lot more focus on that, the rebuilding of the government and the dissent across the nation on an un-elected cabinet member being in office. I just hope the bomb wasn't part of some 24-like conspiracy-from-with like from the general guy wanting to get someone in office he could push around to get a war he wants or some nonsense like that. Though I did like how the general complimented President Kiefer on how handled the Saudi Arabia pipeline ordeal.

 

[Snaploud]

Running for office is very, very, ridiculously expensive when it comes to promotion and advertising and while PACs and donations can cover some of the costs, candidates usually spend quite a bit of cash out-of-pocket to run.

I don't know where you got that idea. Very few modern presidential candidates have relied on self-funding, and an incumbent president should have an easy time finding donors.

He likely will get some support from the DNC but I'm not sure how much they can support him or donate given the various election and campaign laws.

Nothing would prevent the DNC from using its money to support Kirkland. In fact, it's probably their safest move politically unless they have some political superstar waiting in the wings.

 

[Star Wolf]

I don't know where you got that idea. Very few modern presidential candidates have relied on self-funding, and an incumbent president should have an easy time finding donors.


Nothing would prevent the DNC from using its money to support Kirkland. In fact, it's probably their safest move politically unless they have some political superstar waiting in the wings.

With the congressional delegations gone it would probably come down to a Governor Reagan versus President Ford like contest

 

[Snaploud]

With the congressional delegations gone it would probably come down to a Governor Reagan versus President Ford like contest

This actually might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get a former one-term President back in office. I don't know who exists of that type in the Kirkman universe, but I could see one stepping-up in these types of circumstances.

 

[Star Wolf]

^
Or more likely the runner up to the recently deceased President at the last nominating convention. Especially if he was the political insider whose "turn" it was when a new star emerged during the primaries

 

[Tim Thomason]

No executive order is needed. If the Senate is out of session (and it most certainly is), then Kirkman can just appoint whomever to the Supreme Court (or any court or any cabinet member for that matter). It's called a recess appointment, and it's quite constitutional.

The Senate, whenever it came back into session, could then confirm or reject any of Kirkman's appointments. That would be dramatic if a majority of Governors (and the majority of Governors are usually Republican) collude and appoint Senators to deny Kirkman's agenda.

But then, it's only Day 2 or 3. The Supreme Court isn't necessary for day-to-day business. It can wait.

 

[Morpheus 02]

No executive order is needed. If the Senate is out of session (and it most certainly is), then Kirkman can just appoint whomever to the Supreme Court (or any court or any cabinet member for that matter). It's called a recess appointment, and it's quite constitutional.

The Senate, whenever it came back into session, could then confirm or reject any of Kirkman's appointments. That would be dramatic if a majority of Governors (and the majority of Governors are usually Republican) collude and appoint Senators to deny Kirkman's agenda.

But then, it's only Day 2 or 3. The Supreme Court isn't necessary for day-to-day business. It can wait.

I imagine that won't happen till episode 5 (though probably one of the season 2 or 3 storylines... emergency legislative elections would be another storyline)