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Scandals, Not Health, Led to Replacement of Earlier No. 2s

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Times Staff Writer

Given Vice President Dick Cheney’s history of heart problems, even his brief trip to the hospital Saturday after suffering shortness of breath raised questions about what would happen if he were forced to step aside for health reasons.

Under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, President Bush would nominate a replacement who would have to be confirmed by the House and Senate.

There is no timetable for selecting a replacement. “It’s as fast as the public process will allow it to be,” said Timothy Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and the editor of “At the President’s Side: The Vice Presidency in the 21st Century.”

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If something were to happen to Bush before a vice president was confirmed, the next in line to succeed him would be Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert.

The constitutional provision to replace the vice president has been used twice since it was ratified in 1967. Both cases involved scandal.

President Nixon appointed Rep. Gerald R. Ford in 1973 to replace Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned after prosecutors began investigating allegations that he had taken kickbacks from contractors while governor of Maryland and had received some of the money after becoming vice president.

Although Agnew publicly proclaimed, “I will not resign if indicted!” during a speech in Los Angeles that September, he made a deal with prosecutors the following month. He submitted his resignation letter the same day he pleaded no contest to tax charges in a federal court in Baltimore, avoiding a prison term.

Nixon then nominated Ford, who was confirmed and took the oath of office less than two months later.

When Nixon resigned in 1974 during the Watergate scandal, Ford assumed the presidency and chose Nelson A. Rockefeller to fill the No. 2 spot. Rockefeller became vice president four months after being nominated.

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Before the ratification of the 25th Amendment, if something happened to the vice president while in office, the position stayed vacant.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, Vice President Harry S. Truman succeeded him. But the office of the vice president remained unfilled until 1949.

Former Sen. Mark Hatfield, who wrote a history of U.S. vice presidents for the Senate Historical Office in 1997, said the impetus for the constitutional amendment was the death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

“The absence of any provision for filling a vice-presidential vacancy had become intolerable in the nuclear age,” he wrote.

Adding to the concern were the advanced ages of those in line to succeed President Lyndon B. Johnson, who assumed the presidency after Kennedy was slain.

The president pro tempore was 80, and the House speaker was 76, Hatfield wrote.

Historians who have studied the vice presidency said Saturday that if Bush were to name a new vice president, he would probably tap someone who, like Cheney, had no ambition to run for president or someone who could be a credible GOP candidate in 2008.

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Walch said he thought Bush would select a politician “just like Dick Cheney.”

“He would choose someone experienced in Washington, with no political ambition, someone to sail through Congress,” Walch said.

Joel Goldstein, a law professor at St. Louis University and the author of “The Modern American Vice Presidency,” said, “If Cheney were to step down, it would be a free-for-all.”

“Whoever gets the position would be the presumptive nominee in 2008,” Goldstein said. “It would also mean the Democrats would have a great interest in scrutinizing that person extra carefully.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

A chronic health risk for Cheney

A summary of Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart problems:

1978: Cheney’s first heart attack.

1984: His second heart attack.

1988: After suffering his third heart attack, Cheney had quadruple-bypass surgery because of clogged arteries.

2000: Cheney suffered what doctors called a “very slight” heart attack, his fourth, and underwent an angioplasty to open a clogged artery.

May 5, 2001: Cheney felt chest pains and underwent another angioplasty to reopen the same artery.

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June 30, 2001: Cheney returned to the hospital and had a pacemaker called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD, inserted into his chest. During his 2004 annual checkup, doctors said the device had never automatically activated to regulate, which meant his heart was functioning normally.

Nov. 13, 2004: The vice president went to the hospital for tests after complaining of shortness of breath.

Note: After his 2000 heart attack, Cheney quit smoking, began a daily 30-minute regimen on the treadmill and modified his diet. He takes medication to lower his cholesterol.

Source: Associated Press

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