Bayh and his staff had managed to line up 72 cosponsors and they reached out to the White House, resulting in a mention of succession legislation in the State of the Union speech. On Jan 28 the White House sent a full-fledged endorsement of S. J.…

Identical bills were introduced in the House and Senate in the first week of January by Emanuel Celler (D-NY) and Birch Bayh (D-IN) respectively and a supporting analysis issued by the American Bar Association as part of its effort to mobilize public…

Identical bills were introduced in the House and Senate in the first week of January by Emmanuel Celler (D-NY) and Birch Bayh (D-IN) respectively.

The chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Emmanuel Celler (D-NY), had come on board to support S. J. Res. 139 in late May 1964. Since the 65 senators present for the vote had approved the amendment and another 20 had indicated support, the task in…

The revised S. J. Res. 139 that was reported by the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments to the Judiciary Committee on May 27, 1964 and then on August 13 by the Judiciary Committee to the full Senate with unanimous support had stripped out that…

The agreement was proudly announced to the press.

A key barrier was Senator Ken Keating of New York, who had favored an enabling amendment rather than one specifying procedures in the event of Presidential disability. On March 26 he sent Bayh a letter with a detailed analysis of S. J. Res. 139,…

The insights of former President Eisenhower, which advised replacing the Speaker of the House in the chain of succession with a sequence of Cabinet members, were sought and incorporated. Knowing that the House, despite having 22 proposals related to…