It ’s a rare moment indeed that an American kid responds to the dubiousness , " What do you want to be when you grow up ? " with " frailty president ! " Perhaps that ’s because the business office , as historian Mark Hatfield wrote , is " the least understand , most ridiculed , and most often ignore constitutional office in the federal government " [ source : Hatfield].
It produce common sense ; the vice presidency was primitively a comfort prize given to the moon-curser - up in the national election . State Department elector were asked to cast ballot for two candidates , and one of the candidates had to live out of doors of the voter ’s dwelling commonwealth . This process assure that finally a loss leader of national extrusion would issue as president ; the person who came in second became frailty president .
More than two century subsequently , the use of vice President of the United States is little more respected among the public than it was in the beginning . But this sensing is despite the contributions and efforts of a prospicient pedigree of seconds - in - dictation . Some vice president have give way on to satisfy thepresidency , pick out over after the president ’s death or winning a recent election . confessedly , some have done more with their position than others . The office is emphatically what a frailty chairwoman makes of it ; the Constitution declare oneself no road map for the vice chairwoman other than that the " Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate , " but he or she can vote only as a tie-up breaker [ source : Cornell ] .
But the role of the vice president has always been a potentially of import one . He or she is next in line for the presidency , a " wink away " from arguably the most powerful position in the world as the office of president was described during the 2008 presidential race [ source : Newsday ] . And in the wake of the government activity of President George W. Bush , whose frailty President of the United States , Dick Cheney , became the most potent frailty President of the United States ever to apply the business office , discussion of the frailty prexy ’s part is a hotter topic than ever before .
In this article , we ’ll examine the misunderstood role of the frailty president and look at some of the people who ’ve made it what it is today .
Constitutional Provisions for the Vice Presidency
Because the office of the vice president was created almost as an afterthought by the framer of the Constitution , Congress has clarified and defined the role over the age through constitutive amendment .
The original provision for the election of a vice chairman – that of runner - up for thepresidency– was soon reveal as flawed . In the 1800 election , Thomas Jefferson andAaron Burrreceived the same number of electoral votes . The House of Representatives , charge with voting in the event of an electoral tie , cast their ballots – and get the same deadlock 35 metre . Ultimately , Jefferson won , but the experience was enough for Congress to create the 12th Amendment to the Constitution in 1804 , set up up our current system of electors casting different voting for the president and frailty president .
The25th Amendmentwas another landmark change in the vice administration . Before 1967 , when the amendment was adopted , should the vice president take over as president , resign or die , the office stay vacant until the next election . The 25th Amendment gave the Chief Executive ( whether it is the original chair or the freshly come after former frailty Chief Executive ) the power to appoint a new vice president to fill up the character . The appointee , like all other presidential designation , is subject to confirmation by Congress ; in this case a absolute majority vote by both the House and the Senate .
The vice presidency was further clarified by the 25th in that it also write out the protocol for the transference of king from the chairperson to the vice president , should the former become incapacitated or ineffective to carry out the tariff of the office . The most straight agency by which this case can transpire is the president formally alarm the speaker of the house and the Senate Chief Executive pro tempore that he or she can no longer bear out the responsibilities of the office . The administration is then transferred to the frailty president , who hold back the office as act president until the elect President of the United States tells the verbalizer and president pro tempore that he or she is able to sum up the administration .
A stickier position arise when the vice president alerts the Senate chairperson and the speaker system of the house that the president is unable to impart out the office , fundamentally grabbing mightiness from the chairwoman . However , the frailty prexy needs the conventional supporting of the absolute majority of the extremity of the Cabinet for that to transpire . The frailty president can also , with a bulk of the Cabinet , block a president who ’s foreswear power from retake the office . If the president contests this guardianship of inability , Congress deliberate the issue and can overturn the frailty chairwoman ’s role as performing president with a two - third vote by both the House and the Senate .
This power grab has never taken place in the account of the United States , and only once has a prexy transferred power to a frailty president since the 25th Amendment was take over . Prior to undergoing cancer surgery , President Ronald Reagan transfer power to Vice President George H.W. Bush , though it was technically an cozy transfer since Reagan did n’t invoke the 25th Amendment .
The Constitution lays out the qualifications for vice president , and they ’re the same as those required for the President of the United States . The frailty prexy must have been born in the United States ( or on U.S. grease abroad ) , must be at least 35 years old and must have spent at least 14 age of his or her life in the United States .
Throughout the chronicle of the frailty presidential term , those who ’ve held the office have help mold and shape it . Read about the phylogeny of the U.S. frailty presidency on the next page .
The Evolution of the U.S. Vice Presidency
Right out of the logic gate , it come out that the person serving as frailty president had a cleared shot at winning thepresidencyafter the incumbent loss leader finished serving . John Adams , vice president to the first President of the United States , George Washington , won the election after Washington ’s land tenure . President Adams ' second in command , Thomas Jefferson , was elect president right after serving his term as vice president . Jefferson ’s transition to baron mark the beginning of a long dry spell for incumbent vice president , however . After his land tenure , only two more vice presidents were elect President of the United States directly in the next election , Martin Van Buren in 1836 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 [ informant : Encarta ] . What happened ?
Gifted with hindsight , historians generally point to the passage of the 12th Amendment as a major turning point in the importance of the position of frailty chairman . No longer was the vice president a executable ( although get the better of ) contender for the lieu of prexy ; instead , it was result to the political parties to constitute presidential and vice presidential candidates for national elections . This nominating speech unwittingly created the party ticket , and the custom of choosing frailty presidential prospect ground on their appeal to a constituency rather than their ability to lead was conduct . Even in mod times , frailty presidents are generally chosen to offset a presidential candidate so that merge , a ticket will appeal to as many voters as potential .
The early 20th century saw a revving of the frailty presidential locomotive engine , with the office go at full throttle under President Franklin Roosevelt . President Roosevelt had three frailty presidents serve under him during his 12 years in office , and he afforded them more power than any others before . Roosevelt included his vice chairperson at Cabinet coming together ( although President Warren Harding was the first chairwoman to undertake including his vice president , Calvin Coolidge , at the meetings ) . President Roosevelt also made it customary for the vice President of the United States to be involved in negotiations with Congressional leadership over statute law .
Roosevelt also had a major indirect influence on the vice presidency ; he keep his last vice President of the United States , Harry Truman , out of the loop on secret projects , such as theManhattan Projectto produce anuclear bomb . When Roosevelt died in situation , Truman accept over in 1945 as a wartime president without any sure noesis of the bomb . Four years afterward , Congress passed a law that requires the vice president have a lasting seat on the National Security Council , which briefs and advises the executive ramification on armed forces and word .
In the New era , presidents have given more responsibility to the vice president . President John Kennedy put Vice President Lyndon Johnson in flush of the space program and the development ofNASA . Under President Gerald Ford , Vice President Nelson Rockefeller maneuver a committee that investigated abuses by theCIA , include the examination of LSD on unsuspicious Americans .
Vice President Richard Nixon further expand the office both figuratively and literally . While Nixon was in the vice president office , the vice presidential position opened in the Executive Office Building ( in addition to the traditional office space in the Senate Building ) , and the frailty presidential staff was expanded as well .
Take a closer look at the roles and responsibilities of the U.S. vice president next .
Executive Roles and Responsibilities of the U.S. Vice President
It ’s difficult to say on the nose what vice presidents do in any collective signified ; in many display case frailty presidents do what assignments they can wrestle out of thepresident’shands . Some have done little at all , aside from being present in sheath the president ca n’t perform his or her duties . Most often , frailty presidents do what their presidents expect them to .
Over time , and through precedent set by earlier vice presidents , habitual part for the vice President of the United States have emerged . He or she may serve as a surrogate while the president is traveling abroad . The frailty president may receive extraneous dignitaries – a customary persona of the executive outgrowth – and hoststate dinners . The frailty president may also journey in the president ’s lieu , to meet with foreign counterparts or attend state funerals . The frailty presidentship has traditionally been an office where the spillover of undesirable or extra presidential responsibility lands .
Perhaps the most conterminous role of the frailty presidential term over the years has been that of tag balancer . frailty presidents have often served as foils to the president ; materialistic or liberal , experienced or young , domestically tending or concerned in foreign policy . The constituency a vice president bring along is also authoritative ; a Southerner may be chosen to balance a Northern presidential candidate . The vice chair ’s importance in balance a ticket during a campaign is generally short - lived , however . Vice presidents chosen mostly or solely on their power to equilibrize ticket – such as Vice President Dan Quayle – have traditionally seen " their status and time value evaporated after election sidereal day " [ source : Hatfield ] .
modernistic vice United States President have also assumed another traditional role during the cause : attack andiron for the head of the ticket . While the electors of a country are compelled to redact separate voting for the president and frailty president , the pop vote is by just the ticket or party . Conventional wisdom states that single voters broadly vote for the head of the ticket . for the most part free from constraints of popular opinion , the frailty presidential campaigner can serve as a outspoken critic of the resistance and launching onrush against it . This allows the presidential candidate to exert an air of composure and decorousness toward the rival candidates , while still attacking the foe ’s credibility , experience and policies . This character of surrogate may also extend after inauguration , as some modern frailty presidents have bear on their role of shielder of presidential order of business and lambaster of presidential critics .
Some vice presidents have taken a more active persona than others . Under President Dwight Eisenhower , Vice President Richard Nixon take strong stances on behalf of the governing body . Nixon largely took thing into his own hands to shape the roles of the vice presidentship to become his ambitions , and he was successful . Whereas vice President of the United States before him may have just smiled and depart debate with foreign leaders to their President of the United States , Nixon often took the foreign insurance policy rein . In one famous visit to the USSR in 1959 , Vice President Nixon toured an international exhibition in Moscow with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev . Nixon debate the merits of capitalist economy over democracy with Khrushchev , much of the treatment being becharm on goggle box , and launch Nixon and the power of the vice Chief Executive into raw levels of prestige in the public opinion .
Ultimately , the frailty president has one main duty , to preside over the Senate .
The Vice President as President of the Senate
The office of the vice president of the United States is a unique one . It ’s the only office in the federal government that straddles two of the three branches of politics , the legislative and the executive . Since the vice president serves as an functionary of the executive branch but also as thepresidentof the Senate , some in the course of history have found the berth an affront to the separation of powers [ source : Hatfield ] . Customarily , however , vice presidents have chosen to focus on either the legislative or the executive duties , rather than both .
The vice president ’s preside powers over the Senate are for the most part hamstrung by the strict rules order the Senate adopt centuries ago . During the leisure time meter afforded during his frailty presidentship , Thomas Jefferson write a procedural handbook that the Senate and the House still apply as a templet today .
While in the Senate , the frailty president is require to speak only when ruling on an issuance of order , and in another case , when carrying out the Senate Chief Executive ’s official obligation of announce the electoral tallies for the presidential race . This has proven sticky for some frailty president who ’ve run for the presidential spot and lost ; they were force to announce to the Senate the victory of their rival . Four vice presidents – John Adams , Thomas Jefferson , Martin Van Buren and George H.W. Bush – had the gratification of announcing their own victories to the Senate [ source : Hatfield ] .
The frailty President of the United States ’s primary power is the ability to cast the tie - breaking ballot in the Senate . This is n’t as powerful as it sounds . Senate leaders commonly lobby for funding for a bill before they call for a voter turnout on the Senate floor . So senators know ahead of time whether a throwaway has enough votes to pass . What ’s more , the Senate chair ’s suffrage only calculate if the vote is approving ; essentially the vice prexy can only vote yes . That ’s due to Senate procedural rule that submit a bill has been defeat if a tie is reached . The only consequence a vice Chief Executive can have in a tie breaker is if he or she votes yes to part a association , since a no vote on an already vote out billhook is useless .
Some vice Chief Executive have take their role as chairwoman of the Senate in earnest . Thomas Jefferson see the role as the sole one he had as vice president and delay in Washington only when the Senate was in session . ( Jefferson saw his election to the frailty presidency in 1796 as a chance to rest up and await the presidency in the next election . ) Vice President Spiro Agnew , who serve under Richard Nixon , spent time in the Senate , but give up the obligation after one senator accuse him of lobby on the Senate floor , which is illegal . overturn the presidency of the Senate is a long - held custom among most vice presidents . concord to Senate procedure , a temporary president ( a serving senator ) can only be chosen in the absence seizure of the vice president . So the frailty president simply leaves the Senate chamber and the Senate chooses a President of the United States pro tempore .
Find out about the support and staff the frailty Chief Executive enjoys next .
Support and Staff for U.S. Vice President
For the first 185 eld after the creation of the office of the vice Chief Executive of the United States , the multitude who serve in that capacity were stateless . At least , there was n’t any federally denominate abode reserved expressly for the utilisation of the frailty president and his menage . It was up to the vice president to find and pay for his own domicile , which was an add expense , since most vice chairwoman hail from areas of the nation outside of Washington .
That changed in 1974 , when Congress mandate that a Victorian mansion on the grounds of the Naval Observatory , locate at One Observatory Circle off Massachusetts Ave . , become the frailty presidential mansion . The house was formerly hold for the chief of naval operations until Congress took hands of it for the frailty Chief Executive . In the 1980s , Vice President George Bush levy individual donations for a remodeling of the vice presidential mansion .
In increase to the free star sign , the vice president is remunerate for his or her service in the federal governing . The inbuilt framers specified the president would be compensated but did n’t mention the frailty president . From the first , however , the frailty president received an one-year wage – in the beginning $ 5,000 . By 2008 , that salary had lift to $ 208,100 . Pay gain are at the discretion of the President of the United States and are cede by percentages of the former pay , then assault up to the next hundred .
The vice president has a politics jet plane at his disposal . The chairperson ’s secret fountain , Air Force One , is his or her exclusive knowledge domain ; the Boeing 757 the vice president uses is equally decked out – complete with a in full furnish stateroom – but use of the plane is shared with the first lady and Cabinet members . When the frailty president is on base , the call sign for the plane becomesAir Force Two .
Like the president , the vice prexy is protected by a Secret Service detail . Unlike the president , however , the protection does n’t strain to his contiguous family , nor does the protective covering continue after the frailty prexy depart office ( unless he or she ascends to the presidency or is elect to it ) . Secret Service tribute is a twentieth century phenomenon for the Chief Executive ; it was n’t until after the assassination of President James McKinley that the government agency begin serving as presidential bodyguard , and it did n’t become permanent until 1913 . Secret Service protection is even more modern for the frailty presidential term . In 1951 , the agency formally extend an offer for protection to the vice chairperson if he wanted it , and in 1961 , required protection was extend to let in the vice President of the United States and vice president - elect .
The vice chairwoman has two staff , one for the executive and one for the legislative federal agency . The Senate furnishes the vice chair with a staff of around 40 auxiliary , but the most sure staff works out of the frailty United States President ’s situation in the Executive Building . It ’s here that the frailty president ’s chief of staff , interior security advisor , legal consultant and speechwriter work to carry out a presidency in illumination . Prior to 1970 , the vice president had to manage innocent labor out of his Aidoneus or bear them himself . That twelvemonth was the first that Congress appropriated funds for the vice presidential faculty [ source : Political Dictionary ] .
For the most part , vice presidents have center mostly on the executive branch . One , however , has argued that because of the position in the legislative and executive branches of political science , the vice presidentship is in the end beholden to neither . This vice Chief Executive was Dick Cheney , who , along with Vice President Al Gore , has done more to expand and shape the post than any others .
Read about the two frailty presidents who took an aggressive view of the position next .
The Vice Presidency After Gore and Cheney
"Throughout much of American account , the vice President of the United States has served primarily as a reminder ofpresidentialmortality , " write Broder and Henneberger in the New York Times in 2000 . " These eight year have proved another way of bet at the Book of Job " [ reference : Broderand Henneberger ] .
The authors were describing the frailty presidentship of Al Gore , a former senator from Tennessee who served from 1992 to 2000 under President Bill Clinton . Perhaps " beside " is a good Holy Writ . From the outset , Gore changed the term of the frailty presidential term , bring along fellow member from his Senate stave and installing trusted friends into date that customarily were assigned by the president , such as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) . These appointments were n’t mere political favors ; Gore made use of his friends and friend . Under the Clinton / Gore administration , the FCC oversee the foundation of a fresh tax on telecommunications companies . This tax fund a Union programme to instal net connection in public classrooms and the passage ofv - chiptechnology that allows parents to block programming on their televisions .
Although Gore was a benefactor of emerging technology during the ' 90s , he was better known as a mavin of the environment . He pressed President Clinton to lobby Congress for stricter mileage standard for American - made cars . He also manage to extend the forbiddance onoffshore oil colour drillingalong the Atlantic Coast and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge . Despite Congress ' low refusal to ratify the Kyoto Treaty on climate change , Gore flew to the conference in Japan to negotiate among other country .
Vice President Gore also bring a further part in foreign insurance . Most chairperson have enviously guarded their office over this domain . Gore carved a home for his office at the foreign policy table by create an bond with his Russian vis-a-vis and overseeing the remotion of atomic projectile from post - Soviet sliver Department of State . Gore also put unattackable pressure on President Clinton to regularize air strikes against Serbs engaged in heathenish cleaning against Muslim Bosnians in the Balkans [ seed : Broder and Henneberger ] .
Vice President Dick Cheney , who serve President George W. Bush from 2000 to 2008 , expanded the office ’s power even further . In some cases , he actually directed the president – or at least take him in a favored direction . In 2001 , Cheney presented a draught of an executive order that denied a test or court martial to terror defendant , which the president signed within an hour [ reservoir : Telegraph ] .
While in part , Vice President Cheney created a special top privy categorisation for his Indian file , Top Secret / SCI(sensitive compartmentalised info ) , now the highest classification of sensitive stuff [ source : Washington Post ] . Cheney , a seasoned House extremity from Wyoming , also served as emissary between the executive and legislative outgrowth . He argued vehemently for the return of presidential powers , reason that they ’d been limited by Congress in reply to abuses by the Nixon government activity ( in which Cheney began his political vocation as an auxiliary ) and should be expound in the face of the war on terror . Overall , Cheney was successful in his argument .
There are drawback to taking an advanced leadership persona ; along with drive credit for the successes , the frailty president also has to answer for the mistakes . Vice President Gore was bluffly criticized for a deal he brokered with the Russians that allowed them to deal artillery to Iran , an illegal act on Gore ’s part [ source : Broder and Henneberger ] . And revelation about Cheney ’s involvement in the establishment of illegal intervention of prisoners at U.S.prisonsoverseas head him to be take in as a " comic Quran villain " by Washington insider [ source : Telegraph ] .
While the limits of force Gore and Cheney labour the frailty presidential to was historical , there have been many noteworthy event in the office during its chronicle .
Historic Events in the Office of the U.S. Vice Presidency
Perhaps one reason the vice presidential term has so long been a disesteem and often ridiculed government agency , is due to the fact that the federal government activity has functioned perfectly normally on a number of occasions while the seat was vacant . Throughout U.S. account , the country has had seven frailty presidents go in office and one resign ( more on that in a moment ) . These outcome , in accession to the eight times vice President of the United States have risen to the presidential term following the dying of apresident , left the vice presidential power unoccupied on 17 occasions .
On most of these function , the office remained vacant for the remainder of the presidential term , at fourth dimension more than three year . In only one of those fount , following the dying of Vice President George Clinton , was the office occupy in less than a yr . Even in the modernistic era , when a vice prexy ascends to the presidency , the place may remain vacant for a month or more as Congress vets and substantiate the chair ’s charge successor . Vice President Clinton also had another distinction ; he is one of only two vice presidents to serve under two different presidents , Thomas Jefferson and James Madison . The other frailty president to obligate that honor was John C. Calhoun , who served John Quincy Adams and then ran with the opposition candidate , Andrew Jackson , who won .
The appointment of a vice Chief Executive in sentence of vacancy spelled out in the twenty-fifth Amendment became vitally authoritative only six eld after it was pass off . In 1973 , Spiro Agnew was indicted on bang of tax equivocation and submit the frailty administration . President Richard Nixon appointed ( and the Senate confirmed ) Gerald Ford , a House member from Michigan , to satisfy the role . The undermentioned year , the 25th was conjure up again after President Nixon resigned during the scandal besiege the break - in of the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel . Ford ascend to the presidency ( becoming the first soul to serve as both frailty president and president and not have been elected to either office ) and appointed Nelson Rockefeller to his former situation .
One of President Ford ’s first decisions as president was to use his mightiness to pardon Richard Nixon of any crimes he may have committed while in office . Ford was subsequently interpret as laying to lie for salutary or worse a national disgrace , but at the time and for many years to follow , the pardon was seen as the forged kind of political act [ source : The U.S. Senate ] . Ford was defeat by President Jimmy Carter in the undermentioned election .
We ’ve determine that only four incumbent vice presidents were directly elect to office staff , but other previous vice presidents managed to become elected as United States President following a abatement from the White House . Vice President Richard Nixon ran for the presidential term in 1960 but was defeated by Sen. John F. Kennedy . Nixon made it to the highest place in 1972 . Theodore Roosevelt , Calvin Coolidge , Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson were the only vice presidents to rise to the presidency by mean value of death who were re - elect .
The vice presidency also has been a proving ground for part social barrier . In 1984 , Geraldine Ferraro became the first female frailty president to be constitute to a major party tag when popular candidate Walter Mondale select her as his run mate . The Republican Party blazed the same trail in 2008 , when Sen. John McCain take Gov. Sarah Palin for the bottom of the ticket . And the 2000 race saw the first Jewish frailty presidential candidate when Vice President Al Gore take Sen. Joe Lieberman as his run mate .
With the changes and expansion the office of the U.S. frailty president has undergone in the modern era , specially with Al Gore and Dick Cheney at the helm , the CRO of the frailty presidency has let out dramatically . Unless any of the roles taken on by past vice presidents are codify or become steeped in tradition , though , the vice presidency will remain what it ’s always been – what a vice president cause of it .
