Quote:
Originally Posted by kato13
Has Cummings ever called himself President? I just looked over Gateway to the Spanish Main and he is always called something like
"current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and defacto Commander of the
Military Government of the United States"
Edit.
Also is Congress required? The text from part one states
" The President, however, is commander-in-chief of the military, and it has been argued that the President can take it upon himself to declare martial law. In these times, Congress may decide not to act, effectively accepting martial law by failing to stop it;"
That being said a Senate quorum should have been been able to have been assembled. Even if you place a high TDM casuality rate of 65% for senators and Governors (Really High IMO), you should still be able to get 51 senators given governors can appoint any replacements. (Estimated 35 Senators + 22 Replacements on average)
Again canon says nothing about this, but this is not a surprise war. I cannot imagine those types of death rates given the strikes stated and Nukes were flying for 5 months prior. IMO someone would have pre approved martial law or made arrangements for a quorum to be available for many strike scenarios.
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The presidential/martial law debate runs into these stumbling blocks. Yes the President can declare an executive order that states that the Joint Chiefs of Staff assume control. Would it be legal? Nope. Serving military officers are not part of the line of succession because they are military officers. For them to serve in Cabinet posts they must either resign their commission or be retired.
Cummings and the JCS don't have legal authority to "govern" the country, even if they are obeying an executive order. Martial law requires that Congress either approves the decree by voting to have habeas corpus suspended, or give silent approval by not voting at all. And to make it all moot, is the argument that as long as civil law is still running, then martial law cannot be declared.
The issue then becomes what was the Federal Government doing after the first nuclear strikes?
At the very least the President, Vice President and the congressional leaders would have been widely separated. One could easily see one set of leaders in Washington DC keeping up public appearances that all was well, a second set of leaders operating out of one of the COG bases such as Raven Rock, another set, perhaps at Cheyenne Mountain or similar facility.
With the pre war planning and with the fact of nuclear weapons being used tactically, and the excellent chance of them being used in a strategic role. Would the Federal Government ever have broken down so far that a need for an EO ordering the Joint Chiefs to assume military control of the country?
Interesting question....