# Designated Survivor **Designated survivor** is the practice — a convention, not a law — of keeping one person in the [[Presidential Line of Succession]] physically away from any event that gathers the President, Vice President, Cabinet, and congressional leadership in one place (most visibly the State of the Union). The designee, usually a Cabinet secretary who meets the constitutional eligibility test, is taken to a secure location so that if a catastrophe killed everyone assembled, a qualified successor would remain to assume the presidency. It is the visible tip of the broader continuity-of-government planning that the executive branch maintains but rarely discusses. Stub — expand with the Cold War origins, the congressional designated-survivor practice, and the gaps the 9/11 Commission and continuity-of-government reformers flagged. ## See also - [[Presidential Line of Succession]] - [[Presidential Succession Act]] - [[Twenty-Fifth Amendment]]