The White House Dinner Exposed a Constitutional Time Bomb

America's presidential succession rules are one tragedy away from handing the presidency to the opposing party.

The near-miss at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner put a spotlight on a flaw in American government that has been hiding in plain sight. Seven of the top eight senior officials in the presidential line of succession attended that dinner. Had catastrophe struck the president, vice president and House speaker, the next man in line was 92-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore of the Senate, at home in Iowa.

This is a constitutional roulette wheel, not a sensible continuity plan.

The current line of succession comes from the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. After Franklin Roosevelt died and Harry Truman became president, Truman urged Congress to revise the old succession statute. His argument was simple: If both the president and vice president were gone, the next successor should be an elected official rather than a Cabinet officer chosen by the president. Congress agreed, placing the speaker of the House after the vice president, then the Senate president pro te…