I’ve always liked looking at the details of things such as the succession laws, electoral college procedures, and things like that. Because often times we think so much about how things NORMALLY work, that we forget that what really happens in extreme situations is not determined the way one might guess if one didn’t know, but instead by all sorts of arcane details that just never normally come into play in a way that makes a difference. The two articles below talk about some of the currently exisiting “holes” in the rules for what happens when there is death or disability in the Presidential or Vice-Presidental slots. Very interesting stuff.

Constitutional Accidents Waiting To Happen – Again
(Akhil Amar and Vikram Amar, FindLaw)

America cannot always prevent tragedy, but America often can, with relative ease, minimize the constitutional damage resulting from political assassins and the like. Yet the country’s current legal framework is notably flawed – a series of constitutional accidents waiting to happen, and in some cases waiting to happen again… we shall briefly catalogue some of the problems that can occur, and some simple nonpartisan solutions that lawmakers should adopt now – before tragedy strikes again. In future columns, we will offer more details; today we paint the big picture of continued constitutional unpreparedness.

(via OxBlog)

And also pointed to by OxBlog, even more in an earlier article by the same folks and some discussion in the New York Times of similar issues for the Congress.

I don’t have too much to say other than this really should be a straightforward issue here. There is obviously a personal relationship of some sort here, what with the hunting and flying around on Air Force 2, and Scalia should remove himself from the case. Even if it isn’t technically required, not doing so does not look good, and he should do it as a simple matter of his own integrity, and that of the court.

Scalia Was Cheney Hunt Trip Guest; Ethics Concern Grows
(David G. Savage and Richard A. Serrano, LA Times on Yahoo)

The revelation cast further doubts about whether Scalia can be an impartial judge in Cheney’s upcoming case before the Supreme Court, legal ethics experts said. The hunting trip took place just weeks after the high court agreed to take up Cheney’s bid to keep secret the details of his energy policy task force.