Vice President of the United States |
The Vice President of the United States is the second highest executive official of the United States government, the
person who is "a heartbeat from the presidency." As first in the presidential line of succession, the Vice President becomes the new
President of the United States upon the death, resignation, or removal by impeachment and subsequent conviction of the President. Nine Vice Presidents have
assumed the Presidency upon the death or resignation of the President.
Beyond this important role, the only duty required by the U.S. Constitution is that the Vice President serve as the President of the
Senate. Since 1974, the official residence of the Vice President and his family
has been Number One Observatory Circle,
on the grounds of the United States Naval
Observatory in Washington, DC.
Constitutional requirements
To hold the office, the Vice President must satisfy the same constitutional qualifications as the President; that is, the Vice
President must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at least thirty-five years of age, and a resident of the United
States for 14 years.
President of the Senate
As President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3), the Vice President oversees procedural matters and is
given the ability to cast a vote in the event of a tie. There is a strong convention within the U.S. Senate that the Vice President not use his position as
President of the Senate to influence the passage of legislation or act in a partisan manner, except in the case of breaking tie
votes. In fact, the Vice President is constitutionally prevented from voting except in the case of ties. In practice, the Vice
President rarely presides over day-to-day matters in the Senate; in his place, the Senate chooses a President
pro tempore (or "president for a time") to preside in the absence of the Vice President.
One duty required of President of the Senate is presiding over the counting and presentation of the Presidential and Vice
Presidential electoral votes by the U.S. Electoral
College, in the presence of both houses of Congress, on January 6 of the year
following a U.S. presidential election. In this
capacity, only four Vice Presidents have been able to announce their own election to the Presidency: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H. W. Bush.
Election process
Under the U.S. Constitution, the electors of
the U.S. Electoral College originally voted for two
persons for President. The person receiving the greatest number of votes (provided that such a number was a majority of electors)
would be President, while the individual who was in second place became Vice President. If no one received a majority of votes,
then the U.S. House of
Representatives would choose between the five highest vote-getters, with each state getting one vote. In such a case, the
person who received the highest number of votes but was not chosen President would become Vice President. If there was ever a tie
for second, then the U.S. Senate would choose the Vice
President.
The original plan, however, did not forsee the development of political parties. In 1796, for instance, Federalist John Adams
came in first, and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second. Thus, the President and Vice President were from different
parties. An even greater problem occurred in the election of 1800, when Democratic-Republicans Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied the vote. While it was intended that Jefferson was the Presidential contender and Burr was
the Vice Presidential one, the electors did not and could not differentiate between the two under the system of the time. After
35 unsuccessful votes in the U.S. House of Representatives, Thomas Jefferson finally won on the 36th ballot and
Burr became Vice President.
The tumultuous affair led to the adoption of Amendment XII in 1804, which directed the electors to use separate
ballots to vote for the President and Vice President. While this solved the problem at hand, it ultimately had the effect of
lowering the prestige of the Vice Presidency, as the Vice President was no longer the second choice for President.
The Constitution also provides that if the candidates for President and Vice President come from the same state, the electors
from that state cannot vote for both. This might result in the Vice Presidential candidate receiving insufficiently many
electoral votes for election even if the Presidential candidate is elected. In practice, this requirement is easily circumvented
by having the Vice President change the state of residency as was done by Dick
Cheney who changed his legal residency from Texas to Wyoming in order to serve as Vice President for George W.
Bush.
Formally, the Vice-Presidential candidate is nominated by the party convention. However, it has long been the custom that the
Vice-Presidential candidate has been effectively named by the Presidential candidate. Often, the Presidential candidate will name
a Vice-Presidential candidate to bring geographic or ideological balance to the ticket.
Role of the Vice President
Growth of the office
For much of its existence, the office of Vice President was seen as a little more than a minor position. John Adams, the first Vice President, described it as "the most insignificant office
that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." Even 150 years later, 32nd Vice President John Nance Garner famously described the office as "not worth a pitcher
of warm spit." Others have lamented that "A mother had two sons - one went to sea, and one became vice-president - neither was
heard from again". The natural stepping stone to the Presidency was long considered to be the Secretary of State. It has only been fairly
recently that this notion has reversed; indeed, the notion was still very much alive when Harry S. Truman became the Vice President for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
For many years, the Vice President was given few responsibilities. After John Adams attended a meeting of the President's
Cabinet in 1791, no Vice President did so again until
Thomas R. Marshall stood in for President Woodrow Wilson while he travelled to Europe in 1918 and 1919. Marshall's
successor, Calvin Coolidge was invited to meetings by President
Warren G. Harding. The next Vice President, Charles G. Dawes, was not invited after declaring that "the precedent might
prove injurious to the country." Vice President Charles Curtis was also precluded from attending by President Herbert Hoover.
In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
raised the stature of the office by renewing the practice of inviting the Vice President to cabinet meetings, which has been
maintained by every President since. Still, Roosevelt kept his last Vice President Harry S. Truman uninformed on some national security issues. As a result, Truman was unaware of the
top-secret Manhattan Project to develop nuclear weapons when he succeeded to the Presidency upon Roosevelt's death in
1945 while World War II was still raging. The necessity of keeping Vice
Presidents informed on national security issues became clear, and Congress made the Vice President one of four statutory members
of the National Security
Council in 1949.
In October 1952, Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson sought to magnify the importance of the number two position in the executive branch when he
said, "The Republican Vice Presidential Candidate ... asks you to place him a heartbeat from the Presidency," referring to
Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice presidential running mate,
Richard Nixon.
Once elected, President Eisenhower raised the stature of the Vice Presidency further when he ordered Vice President Nixon to
preside at Cabinet meetings in his absence.
Modern role
The formal powers and role of the Vice President with a healthy, functioning President are limited to the Presidency of the
Senate, including a casting vote in the event of a deadlock. This was important in the first half of 2001, as the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and thus Dick Cheney's casting vote gave
the Republicans the Senate majority.
Their other functions are as a spokesperson for the administration's policy, as an adviser to the President, and as a symbol
of American concern or support. Their influence in this role depends almost entirely on the characteristics of the particular
administration. Cheney, for instance, is widely regarded as one of George W. Bush's closest confidantes. Often, Vice Presidents
will take harder-line stands on issues to ensure the support of the party's base while deflecting partisan criticism away from
the President. Other times their primary role seems to be meeting heads of state or attending state funerals in other countries,
at times when the administration wishes to demonstrate concern or support without having to actually send the President himself
to do so.
Vice President Bush meets with President Reagan in 1984.
Normally, candidates for President will name a candidate for Vice President when they are assured of the party's nomination.
Since the Presidential candidate is now generally known before the party convention, this announcement is now typically made in
the first day or so of the party convention. Generally, the choice of running mate is ultimately made by the Presidential
candidate alone (although with considerable counsel from advisors) and often is done to create balance on a ticket. It is common
for the Vice Presidential candidate to come from a different region of the country than the President or appeal to a slightly
different ideological wing of the party.
In recent years, the Vice Presidency has frequently been used to launch bids for the Presidency. Since 1960, only two
presidential elections, the 1980
election and 1996 election,
did not feature an incumbent or former Vice President as a major candidate. The election of 1968, provided the option of
two men who had served as Vice President, Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.
Succession and the 25th Amendment
Vice President Ford is sworn in as the 38th President following the resignation of President Nixon
The U.S. Constitution provides that should the President die or become disabled while in office, the "powers and duties" of
the office are transferred to the Vice President. It remained unclear as to whether the Vice President actually became the new
President or merely Acting President. This was first tested in 1841 with the death of
President William Henry Harrison. Harrison's Vice
President, John Tyler, asserted that he should gain the full Presidential
powers and title. Despite many calls against it, Tyler took the oath of office, becoming the tenth President. Tyler's claim was
not challenged legally, and so the precedent of full succession was established.
The Constitution still left several questions unanswered, however. If the Vice President died in office, resigned, or
succeeded to the Presidency, there was no process for selecting a replacement, so the office of Vice President remained vacant
until the next Presidential election. Additionally, the shooting and hospitalization of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 led to the question of who has the
power to declare that the President is unable to discharge his duties, should he become incapacitated. This led to the
ratification of Amendment XXV to the U.S. Constitution in 1967.
The 25th Amendment provides that "Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall
nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress." Gerald Ford was the first Vice President selected by this method, after the
resignation of Spiro Agnew in 1974;
after succeeding to the Presidency, Ford nominated Nelson
Rockefeller as Vice President.
The amendment also provides means for the Vice President to become Acting President upon the temporary disability of the President. This procedure
has been activated twice: once on July 13, 1985, when Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove cancerous
polyps from his colon, and again on June 29, 2002, when President George W. Bush underwent a colonoscopy requiring sedation.
Prior to this amendment, Vice President Richard Nixon replaced
President Eisenhower on an informal basis three times for a
period of weeks each time when Eisenhower was ill.
Vice Presidents of the United States
Notes: ¹Died in office. ²Resigned. ³Succeeded to the Presidency.
Prior to the ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967, no provision existed for the selection of a Vice President in the
event of a vacancy in the office (by death, resignation, or succession to the Presidency). Consequently, the position remained
vacant until the next election and inauguration.
Vice Presidential facts
Two Vice Presidents served under two different Presidents:
Seven Vice Presidents have died in office:
Two Vice Presidents have resigned from office:
- John C. Calhoun resigned in 1832 to take a seat in the Senate, having been
chosen to fill a vacancy.
- Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 upon
pleading no contest to charges of accepting bribes while governor of Maryland.
Nine Vice Presidents succeeded to the Presidency:
Of those who succeeded above, four would later be elected in their own right:
Five Vice Presidents did not succeed to the Presidency but were later elected President in their own right:
Two Vice Presidents have acted as President due to presidential incapacity:
Related articles
External links
Further reading
- Bland Ambition: From
Adams to Quayle--The Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats, and Golfers Who Made It to Vice President, by Steve W. Tally; ASIN:
0156131404.
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