(CNN) Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was the “designated survivor” during President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
The selection comes the same day CNN reported that Walsh is expected to leave the Biden administration soon — marking the first Cabinet secretary departure of the Biden presidency.
Biden’s speech took place in the House chamber, where he spoke in front of almost every influential federal official in Washington — including members of Congress, top military brass, US Supreme Court justices and senior officials within his administration.
Walsh, a key member of Biden’s economic team, became the first Labor secretary in American history to publicly participate in the obscure ritual to maintain the line of succession in the rare case of a hit. in disaster.
Last year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was the designated survivor for Biden’s first State of the Union address, staying away from the Capitol in an undisclosed and secure location during the president’s prime time remarks.
According to the National Constitution Center, the tradition of a designated survivor during the State of the Union address began in the 1950s as a result of the fear of a nuclear attack during the Cold War. But the federal government did not publicly name the designated survivor until 1981, when President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education Terrel Bell claimed the designation for a speech to a joint session of Congress.
The presidential line of succession is outlined in the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, which was updated during the Truman administration in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Harry Truman’s assumption of the highest office.
After the vice president, the speaker of the House, the president of the Senate pro tempore, and the secretaries of State, Treasury and Defense are next in line of succession. Data analyzed by CNN shows that the attorney general, seventh in line of succession, is the highest-ranking Cabinet member known to have been designated as a survivor. A head of the Department of Justice has been elected for the role three times.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
The secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture tied for the most frequently designated survivor appointments, with seven names each. And while they are still in the line of succession, no Secretary of Education is known to have served as a designated survivor.
While many of the appointments are mixed with politics, all three surviving Veterans Affairs secretaries have served in the role while a Republican was president. In contrast, Democratic presidents are the only ones who appoint their secretaries from the Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation and Department of Homeland Security to serve as designated survivors during the State of the Union address.
Although less well known, the National Constitution Center notes that designated survivors are also used in inaugurations and presidential addresses to joint sessions of Congress. Members of Congress have also been instructed to skip the State of the Union as a precautionary measure, according to the center.
A designated survivor must be eligible to become president, and if a higher-ranking heir survives a potential incident, that person becomes president. Acting Cabinet secretaries are eligible for the line of succession if they have been confirmed by the Senate for other positions, according to 2003 congressional testimony from John Fortier, executive director of the government continuity commission. But naturalized US citizens, such as current Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, are not eligible to serve as president and therefore cannot be designated survivors.
Most of the designated survivors, like Raimondo, maintain a regular schedule as they avoid the Capitol for the president’s speech.
Raimondo said last year that her turn as a designated survivor was “relatively uneventful,” staying outside of Washington “but doing my job like any other day.”
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report.