“Not as long as I do whatever I do from within the framework of the Constitution,” Giancola disagreed. “As long as I do that, he can’t take direct action against me without violating due process himself, and he won’t do that. It would be like strangling his own child.”

“You may be right,” McGwire conceded after a moment. “But if Pritchart decides to demand your resignation, he’ll certainly back her up. Especially if LePic and Justice also support her.”

“Well, yes… and no,” Giancola said with a slow, nasty smile.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“Well, it just happens that there might be a slight difference of opinion as to whether or not a President can dismiss a Cabinet-level minister on a whim.”

“That’s ridiculous,” McGwire said flatly. “Oh, I agree it might be convenient if she couldn’t,” he continued in a slightly placating tone as Giancola frowned at him. “But the precedents under the old Constitution were clear enough, Arnold. Cabinet ministers serve at the pleasure of the President, and she has the right to dismiss any of them whenever she chooses.”

“That may not be entirely true,” Jason Giancola put in. “Or, rather, it may have been true under the old Constitution without being true under the new one.”

“But the new Constitution is the old one,” McGwire said.

“Mostly,” the older Giancola said, taking over control of the conversation once more. “But if you go back and read the minutes of the Constitutional Convention, and then take a close look at the exact language of the resolution readopting the pre-Legislaturalist Constitution, you’ll find that the second clause of subsection three specifies that ‘all acts, laws, resolutions, and executive decisions and/or decrees made to reimplement this Constitution shall be subject to the consideration and approval of this Convention and of the Congress which shall succeed it.’ ”

“So what?” McGwire’s puzzlement was apparent.

“So arguably, Pritchart’s selection of the members of her first Cabinet—the Cabinet under whose direction the Constitution’s been officially put back on-line—would come under the heading of ‘executive decisions and/or decrees made to reimplement this Constitution.’ In which case, of course, the entire Congress would have the legal right and responsibility to approve any changes she might unilaterally decide to make. Especially a change which would replace the individual charged with heading the interim administration of the state if something happened to her.”

“That’s really stretching, Arnold,” the senator said skeptically.

“I suppose some might think it was,” Giancola conceded equably. “But others might not. And given the grave constitutional implications of the question at this crucial formative stage in the Republic’s evolution, it would obviously behoove those in disagreement with the President to submit it to the judgment of the judiciary for definitive clarification. And, of course, to seek an injunction to stay the President’s actions until the High Court can consider it.”

“And,” his brother Jason said with an edge of very poorly disguised jubilation, “I have it on fairly reliable authority that Chief Justice Tullingham would be prepared to give the question very careful consideration if that should happen.”