The Vice President of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term of office. The vice president is the first person in the presidential line of succession, and would ascend to the Presidency upon the death, resignation, or removal of the President.
The vice president is also president of the United States Senate. In that capacity, he is allowed to vote in the Senate only when necessary to break a tie. While Senate customs have created supermajority rules that have diminished this Constitutional, tie-breaking authority, the vice president still retains the ability to influence legislation, e.g. the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.
Pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the Vice President presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College.
While the Vice President's only constitutionally prescribed functions aside from Presidential succession relate to his role as President of the Senate, the office is commonly viewed as a component of the executive branch of the federal government. The United States Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute amongst scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the Vice President as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the Vice President by either the President or Congress, though such activities are only recent historical developments.
Origin
The creation of the office of Vice President was a direct consequence of the Electoral College. Delegates to the Philadelphia Convention gave each state a number of presidential electors equal to that state's combined share of House and Senate seats. Yet the delegates were worried that each elector would only favor his own state's favorite son candidate, resulting in deadlocked elections that would produce no winners. To counter this potential difficulty, the delegates gave each presidential elector two votes, requiring that at least one of their votes be for a candidate from outside the elector's state; they also mandated that the winner of an election must obtain an absolute majority of the total number of electors. The delegates expected that each elector's second vote would go to a statesman of national character.
Fearing that electors might throw away their second vote to bolster their favorite son's chance of winning, however, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the runner-up would become Vice President. Creating this new office imposed a political cost on discarded votes and forced electors to cast their second ballot.
Roles of the Vice President
The Constitution limits the formal powers and role of Vice President to becoming President, should the President become unable to serve, prompting the well-known expression "only a heartbeat away from the Presidency", and to acting as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate.
Other statutorily granted roles include membership of both the National Security Council and the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
President of the United States Senate
As President of the Senate, the Vice President has two primary duties: to cast a vote in the event of a Senate deadlock and to preside over and certify the official vote count of the U.S. Electoral College. For example, in the first half of 2001, the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority.
Regular duties
As President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3, Clause 4), the Vice President oversees procedural matters and may cast a tie-breaking vote. There is a strong convention within the U.S. Senate that the Vice President should 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. As President of the Senate, John Adams cast twenty-nine tie-breaking votes, a record no successor except John C. Calhoun ever threatened. Adams's votes protected the President's sole authority over the removal of appointees, influenced the location of the national capital, and prevented war with Great Britain. On at least one occasion Adams persuaded senators to vote against legislation he opposed, and he frequently addressed the Senate on procedural and policy matters. Adams's political views and his active role in the Senate made him a natural target for critics of George Washington's administration. Toward the end of his first term, a threatened resolution that would have silenced him except for procedural and policy matters caused him to exercise more restraint in hopes of seeing his election as President of the United States.
In modern times, 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 Vice President's absence; the Senate normally selects the longest-serving senator in the majority party. The President pro tempore has the power to appoint any other senator to preside and in practice, junior senators from the majority party are assigned the task of presiding over the Senate at most times.
Except for this tie-breaking role, the Standing Rules of the Senate vest no significant responsibilities in the Vice President. Rule XIX, which governs debate, does not authorize the Vice President to participate in debate, and grants only to members of the Senate (and, upon appropriate notice, former presidents of the United States) the privilege of addressing the Senate, without granting a similar privilege to the sitting Vice President. Thus, as Time magazine wrote during the controversial tenure of Vice President Charles G. Dawes, "once in four years the Vice President can make a little speech, and then he is done. For four years he then has to sit in the seat of the silent, attending to speeches ponderous or otherwise, of deliberation or humor."
Recurring, infrequent duties
The President of the Senate also presides over counting and presentation of the votes of the Electoral College. This process occurs in the presence of both houses of Congress, generally 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. At the beginning of 1961, it fell to Richard Nixon to preside over this process, which officially announced the election of his 1960 opponent, John F. Kennedy. In 2001, Al Gore announced the election of his opponent, George W. Bush. In 1969, Vice President Hubert Humphrey would have announced the election of his opponent, Richard Nixon; however, on the date of the Congressional joint session (January 6), Humphrey was in Norway attending the funeral of Trygve Lie, the first elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.
In 1933, incumbent Vice President Charles Curtis announced the election of House Speaker John Nance Garner as his successor, while Garner was seated next to him on the House dais.
The President of the Senate may also preside over most of the impeachment trials of federal officers. However, whenever the President of the United States is impeached, the US Constitution requires the Chief Justice of the United States to preside over the Senate for the trial. The Constitution is silent as to the presiding officer in the instance where the Vice President is the officer impeached.
Succession and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment
The U.S. Constitution provides that should the president die, become disabled while in office or removed from office, the "powers and duties" of the office are transferred to the Vice President. Initially, it was unclear whether the Vice President actually became the new President or merely an 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 had succeeded to the full Presidential office, powers, and title, and declined to acknowledge documents referring to him as "Acting President." Despite some strong calls against it, Tyler took the oath of office as the tenth President. Tyler's claim was not challenged legally, and so the Tyler precedent of full succession was established. This was made explicit by Section 1 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1967.
Section 2 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment provides for Vice Presidential succession:
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 Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973; after succeeding to the Presidency, Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President.
Another issue was who had the power to declare that an incapacitated president is unable to discharge his duties. This question had arisen most recently with the illnesses of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Section 3 and Section 4 of the amendment provide means for the Vice President to become Acting President upon the temporary disability of the president. Section 3 deals with self-declared incapacity of the president. Section 4 deals with incapacity declared by the joint action of the Vice President and of a majority of the Cabinet.
While Section 4 has never been invoked, Section 3 has been invoked three times: on July 13, 1985 when Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon, and twice more on June 29, 2002 and July 21, 2007 when George W. Bush underwent colonoscopy procedures requiring sedation. Prior to this amendment, Vice President Richard Nixon informally replaced President Dwight Eisenhower for several weeks on each of three occasions when Eisenhower was ill.
Informal roles
The extent of any informal roles and functions of the Vice President depend on the specific relationship between the President and the Vice President, but often include tasks such as drafter and spokesperson for the administration's policies, adviser to the President, and being a symbol of American concern or support. The influence of the Vice President in this role depends almost entirely on the characteristics of the particular administration. Dick Cheney, for instance, was widely regarded as one of President George W. Bush's closest confidants. Al Gore was an important adviser to President Bill Clinton on matters of foreign policy and the environment. Often, Vice Presidents are chosen to act as a "balance" to the President, taking either more moderate or radical positions on issues. Under the American system the President is both head of state and head of government, and the ceremonial duties of the former position are often delegated to the Vice President. The Vice President is often assigned the ceremonial duties of representing the President and the government at state funerals or other functions in the United States. This often is the most visible role of the Vice President, and has occasionally been the subject of ridicule, such as during the Vice Presidency of George H. W. Bush. The Vice President may meet with other heads of state or attend state funerals in other countries, at times when the administration wishes to demonstrate concern or support but cannot send the President himself. Many Vice Presidents have lamented the lack of meaningful work in their role, from the very first Vice President, John Adams, who said "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." John Nance Garner, who served as Vice President from 1933 to 1941 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, claimed that the Vice Presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." Harry Truman, who also served as Vice President under Roosevelt, said that the office was as "useful as a cow's fifth teat."
Office as stepping stone to the Presidency
In recent decades, the Vice Presidency has frequently been used to launch bids for the Presidency. The transition of the office to its modern stature occurred primarily as a result of Franklin Roosevelt's 1940 nomination, when he captured the ability to nominate his running mate instead of leaving the nomination to the convention. Prior to that, party bosses often used the Vice Presidential nomination as a consolation prize for the party's minority faction. A further factor potentially contributing to the rise in prestige of the office was the adoption of Presidential preference primaries in the early 20th century. By adopting primary voting, the field of candidates for Vice President was expanded by both the increased quantity and quality of presidential candidates successful in some primaries, yet who ultimately failed to capture the Presidential nomination at the convention.
Of the thirteen Presidential elections from 1956 to 2004, nine featured the incumbent President; the other four (1960, 1968, 1988, 2000) all featured the incumbent Vice President. Former Vice Presidents also ran, in 1984 (Walter Mondale), and in 1968 (Richard Nixon, against the incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey). The first Presidential election to include neither the incumbent President nor the incumbent Vice President on a major party ticket since 1952 came in 2008 when President George W. Bush had already served two terms and Vice President Cheney chose not to run. Richard Nixon is also the only non-sitting Vice President to be elected President, as well as the only person to be elected President and Vice President twice each.
Selection process
Eligibility
The Twelfth Amendment states that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice President of the United States." Thus, to serve as Vice President, an individual must:
- Be a natural-born U.S. citizen;
- Be at least 35 years old
- Have resided in the U.S. at least 14 years.
Disqualifications
Additionally, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment denies eligibility for any federal office to anyone who, having sworn an oath to support the United States Constitution, later has rebelled against the United States. This disqualification, originally aimed at former supporters of the Confederacy, may be removed by a two-thirds vote of each house of the Congress.
Under the Twenty-second Amendment, the President of the United States may not be elected to more than two terms. However, there is no similar such limitation as to how many times one can be elected Vice President. Scholars disagree whether a former President barred from election to the Presidency is also ineligible to be elected Vice President, as suggested by the Twelfth Amendment. The issue has never been tested in practice.
Also, Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 allows the Senate, upon voting to remove an impeached federal official from office, to disqualify that official from holding any federal office.
Residency limitation
While it is commonly held that the President and Vice President must be residents of different states, this is not actually the case. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits both candidates being from a single state. Instead, the limitation imposed is on the members of the Electoral College, who must cast a ballot for at least one candidate who is not from their own state.
In theory, the candidates elected could both be from one state, but the electors of that state would, in a close electoral contest, run the risk of denying their vice presidential candidate the absolute majority required to secure the election, even if the presidential candidate is elected. This would then place the vice presidential election in the hands of the Senate.
In practice, however, residency is rarely an issue. Parties have avoided nominating tickets containing two candidates from the same state. Further, the candidates may themselves take action to alleviate any residency conflict. For example, at the start of the 2000 election cycle Dick Cheney was a resident of Texas; Cheney quickly changed his residency back to Wyoming, where he had previously served as a U.S. Representative, when Texas governor and Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush asked Cheney to be his vice presidential candidate.
Nominating process
The vice presidential candidates of the major national political parties are formally selected by each party's quadrennial nominating convention, following the selection of the party's presidential candidates. The official process is identical to the one by which the presidential candidates are chosen, with delegates placing the names of candidates into nomination, followed by a ballot in which candidates must receive a majority to secure the party's nomination. In practice, the presidential nominee has considerable influence on the decision, and in the 20th century it became customary for that person to select a preferred running mate, who is then nominated and accepted by the convention. In recent years, with the presidential nomination usually being a foregone conclusion as the result of the primary process, the selection of a vice presidential candidate is often announced prior to the actual balloting for the presidential candidate, and sometimes before the beginning of the convention itself. The first presidential aspirant to announce his selection for Vice President before the beginning of the convention was Ronald Reagan who, prior to the 1976 Republican National Convention announced that Richard Schweiker would be his running mate. Reagan's supporters then sought to amend the convention rules so that Gerald R. Ford would be required to name his vice presidential running mate in advance as well. The proposal was defeated, and Reagan did not receive the nomination in 1976. Often, the presidential nominee will name a vice presidential candidate who will bring geographic or ideological balance to the ticket or appeal to a particular constituency. The vice presidential candidate might also be chosen on the basis of traits the presidential candidate is perceived to lack, or on the basis of name recognition. To foster party unity, popular runners-up in the presidential nomination process are commonly considered. While this selection process may enhance the chances of success for a national ticket, in the past it often insured that the vice presidential nominee represented regions, constituencies, or ideologies at odds with those of the presidential candidate. As a result, vice presidents were often excluded from the policy-making process of the new administration. Many times their relationships with the president and his staff were aloof, non-existent, or even adversarial.
The ultimate goal of vice presidential candidate selection is to help and not hurt the party's chances of getting elected. A selection whose positive traits make the presidential candidate look less favorable in comparison can backfire, such as in 1988 when Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis chose experienced Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, and in 2008 when Republican candidate John McCain picked dynamic Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. However, Palin also hurt McCain when her interviews with Katie Couric, led to concerns about her fitness for the presidency. In 1984, Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro whose nomination became a drag on the ticket due to repeated questions about her husband's finances. Questions about Dan Quayle's experience and temperament were raised in the 1988 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, but he still won. James Stockdale, the choice of third-party candidate Ross Perot in 1992, was seen as unqualified by many, but the Perot-Stockdale ticket still won about 19% of the vote.
Historically, vice presidential candidates were chosen to provide geographic and ideological balance to a presidential ticket, widening a presidential candidate's appeal to voters from outside his regional base or wing of the party. Candidates from electoral-vote rich states were usually preferred. However, in 1992, moderate Democrat Bill Clinton (of Arkansas) chose moderate Democrat Al Gore (of Tennessee) as his running mate. Despite the two candidates' near-identical ideological and regional backgrounds, Gore's extensive experience in national affairs enhanced the appeal of a ticket headed by Clinton, whose political career had been spent entirely at the local and state levels of government. In 2000, George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney of Wyoming, a reliably Republican state with only three electoral votes, and in 2008, Barack Obama mirrored Bush's strategy when he chose Joe Biden of Delaware, a reliably Democratic state, likewise one with only three electoral votes. Both Cheney and Biden were chosen for their experience in national politics (experience lacked by both Bush and Obama) rather than the ideological balance or electoral vote advantage they would provide.
The first presidential candidate to choose his vice presidential candidate was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. The last not to name a vice presidential choice, leaving the matter up to the convention, was Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1956. The convention chose Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver over Massachusetts Senator (and later president) John F. Kennedy. At the tumultuous 1972 Democratic convention, presidential nominee George McGovern selected Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate, but numerous other candidates were either nominated from the floor or received votes during the balloting. Eagleton nevertheless received a majority of the votes and the nomination, though he later resigned from the ticket, resulting in Robert Sargent Shriver becoming McGovern's final running mate; both lost to the Nixon-Agnew ticket by a wide margin, carrying only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
In cases where the presidential nomination is still in doubt as the convention approaches, the campaigns for the two positions may become intertwined. In 1976, Ronald Reagan, who was trailing President Gerald R. Ford in the presidential delegate count, announced prior to the Republican National Convention that, if nominated, he would select Senator Richard Schweiker as his running mate. This move backfired to a degree, as Schweiker's relatively liberal voting record alienated many of the more conservative delegates who were considering a challenge to party delegate selection rules to improve Reagan's chances. In the end, Ford narrowly won the presidential nomination and Reagan's selection of Schweiker became moot.
Election, oath, and tenure
Vice Presidents are elected indirectly in the United States. A number of electors, collectively known as the Electoral College, officially select the President. On Election Day, voters in each of the states and the District of Columbia cast ballots for these electors. Each state is allocated a number of electors, equal to the size of its delegation in both Houses of Congress combined. Generally, the ticket that wins the most votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes and thus has its slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College.
The winning slate of electors meet at its state's capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, about six weeks after the election, to vote. They then send a record of that vote to Congress. The vote of the electors is opened by the sitting Vice President, acting in his capacity as President of the Senate and read aloud to a joint session of the incoming Congress, which was elected at the same time as the President.
Pursuant to the Twentieth Amendment, the Vice President's term of office begins at noon on January 20 of the year following the election. This date, known as Inauguration Day, marks the beginning of the four-year terms of both the President and Vice President.
Although Article VI requires that the Vice President take an oath or affirmation of allegiance to the US Constitution, unlike the President, the United States Constitution does not specify the precise wording of the oath of office for the Vice President. Several variants of the oath have been used since 1789; the current form, which is also recited by Senators, Representatives and other government officers, has been used since 1884:
I, Aâ€" Bâ€", do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
The term of office for Vice President is four years. While the Twenty-Second Amendment generally restricts the President to two terms, there is no similar limitation on the office of Vice President, meaning an eligible person could hold the office as long as voters continued to vote for electors who in turn would renew the Vice President's tenure. A Vice President could even serve under different administrations, as George Clinton and John C. Calhoun have done.
Original election process and reform
Under the original terms of the Constitution, the electors of the Electoral College voted only for office of President rather than for both President and Vice President. Each elector was allowed to vote for two people for the top office. 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 received the next largest number of votes became Vice President. If no one received a majority of votes, then the House of Representatives would choose among the five candidates with the largest numbers of votes, with each state's representatives together casting a single vote. In such a case, the person who received the highest number of votes but was not chosen President would become Vice President. In the case of a tie for second, then the Senate would choose the Vice President.
The original plan, however, did not foresee the development of political parties and their adversarial role in the government. For example, in the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams came in first, but because the Federalist electors had divided their second vote amongst several vice presidential candidates, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second. Thus, the President and Vice President were from opposing parties. Predictably, Adams and Jefferson clashed over issues such as states' rights and foreign policy.
A greater problem occurred in the election of 1800, in which the two participating parties each had a secondary candidate they intended to elect as Vice President, but the more popular Democratic-Republican party failed to execute that plan with their electoral votes. Under the system in place at the time (Article II, Section 1, Clause 3), the electors could not differentiate between their two candidates, so the plan had been for one elector to vote for Thomas Jefferson but not for Aaron Burr, thus putting Burr in second place. This plan broke down for reasons that are disputed, and both candidates received the same number of votes. After 35 deadlocked ballots in the House of Representatives, Jefferson finally won on the 36th ballot and Burr became Vice President.
This tumultuous affair led to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment 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 office was no longer for the leading challenger for the Presidency.
The separate ballots for President and Vice President became something of a moot issue later in the 19th century when it became the norm for popular elections to determine a state's Electoral College delegation. Electors chosen this way are pledged to vote for a particular presidential and vice presidential candidate (offered by the same political party). So, while the Constitution says that the President and Vice President are chosen separately, in practice they are chosen together.
If no vice presidential candidate receives an Electoral College majority, then the Senate selects the Vice President, in accordance with the United States Constitution. The Twelfth Amendment states that a "majority of the whole number" of Senators (currently 51 of 100) is necessary for election. Further, the language requiring an absolute majority of Senate votes precludes the sitting Vice President from breaking any tie which might occur. The election of 1836 is the only election so far where the office of the Vice President has been decided by the Senate. During the campaign, Martin Van Buren's running mate Richard Mentor Johnson was accused of having lived with a black woman. Virginia's 23 electors, who were pledged to Van Buren and Johnson, refused to vote for Johnson (but still voted for Van Buren). The election went to the Senate, where Johnson was elected 33-17.
Salary
The Vice President's salary is $230,700. The salary was set by the 1989 Government Salary Reform Act, which also provides an automatic cost of living adjustment for federal employees.
The Vice President does not automatically receive a pension based on that office, but instead receives the same pension as other members of Congress based on his position as president of the Senate. The Vice President must serve a minimum of five years to qualify for a pension.
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, D.C.
Vacancy
Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 and Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution both authorize the House of Representatives to serve as a "grand jury" with the power to impeach high federal officials, including the President, for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Similarly, Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 and Article II, Section 4 both authorize the Senate to serve as a court with the power to remove impeached officials from office, given a two-thirds vote to convict. No Vice President has ever been impeached.
Prior to ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967, no provision existed for filling a vacancy in the office of Vice President. As a result, the Vice Presidency was left vacant 16 timesâ€"sometimes for nearly four yearsâ€"until the next ensuing election and inauguration: eight times due to the death of the sitting president, resulting in the Vice Presidents becoming President; seven times due to the death of the sitting Vice President; and once due to the resignation of Vice President John C. Calhoun to become a senator.
Calhoun resigned because he had been dropped from the ticket by President Andrew Jackson in favor of Martin Van Buren, due primarily to conflicting with the President over the issue of nullification. Already a lame duck Vice President, he was elected to the Senate by the South Carolina state legislature and resigned the Vice Presidency early to begin his Senate term because he believed he would have more power as a senator.
Since the adoption of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the office has been vacant twice while awaiting confirmation of the new Vice President by both houses of Congress. The first such instance occurred in 1973 following the resignation of Spiro Agnew as Richard Nixon's Vice President. Gerald Ford was subsequently nominated by President Nixon and confirmed by Congress. The second occurred 10 months later when Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal and Ford assumed the Presidency. The resulting Vice Presidential vacancy was filled by Nelson Rockefeller. Ford and Rockefeller are the only two people to have served as Vice President without having been elected to the office, and Ford remains the only person to have served as both Vice President and President without being elected to either office.
Once the election is over, the Vice President's usefulness is over. He's like the second stage of a rocket. He's damn important going into orbit, but he's always thrown off to burn up in the atmosphere.
â€" An aide to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment also made provisions for a replacement in the event that the Vice President died in office, resigned, was removed from office via impeachment conviction or succeeded to the presidency. The original Constitution had no provision for selecting such a replacement, so the office of Vice President would remain vacant until the beginning of the next Presidential and Vice Presidential terms. This issue had arisen most recently when the John F. Kennedy assassination caused a vacancy from November 22, 1963, until January 20, 1965, and was rectified by Section 2 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.
Growth of the office
For much of its existence, the office of Vice President was seen as little more than a minor position. Adams, the first Vice President, was the first of many who found the job frustrating and stupefying. Thomas R. Marshall, the 28th Vice President, lamented: "Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected Vice President of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again." His successor, Calvin Coolidge, was so obscure that Major League Baseball sent him free passes that misspelled his name, and a fire marshal failed to recognize him when Coolidge's Washington residence was evacuated. When the Whig Party asked Daniel Webster to run for the Vice Presidency on Zachary Taylor's ticket, he replied "I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin." This was the second time Webster declined the office, which William Henry Harrison had first offered to him. Ironically, both of the Presidents making the offer to Webster died in office, meaning the three-time Presidential candidate could have become President if he had accepted either. Since Presidents rarely died in office, however, the better preparation for the Presidency was considered to be the office of Secretary of State, in which Webster served under Harrison, Tyler, and later, Taylor's successor, Fillmore.
For many years, the Vice President was given few responsibilities. Garret Hobart, the first Vice President under William McKinley, was one of the very few Vice Presidents at this time who played an important role in the administration. A close confidant and adviser of the President, Hobart was called "Assistant President." However, until 1919, Vice Presidents were not included in meetings of the President's Cabinet. This precedent was broken by President Woodrow Wilson when he asked Thomas R. Marshall to preside over Cabinet meetings while Wilson was in France negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. President Warren G. Harding also invited his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge, to meetings. The next Vice President, Charles G. Dawes, did not seek to attend Cabinet meetings under President Coolidge, 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, Franklin D. Roosevelt raised the stature of the office by renewing the practice of inviting the Vice President to cabinet meetings, which every President since has maintained. Roosevelt's first Vice President, John Nance Garner, broke with him at the start of the second term on the Court-packing issue and became Roosevelt's leading political enemy. In 1937, Garner became the first vice president to be sworn in on the Capitol steps in the same ceremony with the president, a tradition that continues. Prior to that time, vice presidents were traditionally inaugurated at a separate ceremony in the Senate chamber. Gerald R. Ford and Nelson A. Rockefeller, who were both appointed to the office under the terms of the 25th amendment, were inaugurated in the House and Senate chambers, respectively.
Garner's successor, Henry Wallace, was given major responsibilities during the war, but he moved further to the left than the Democratic Party and the rest of the Roosevelt administration and was relieved of actual power. Roosevelt kept his last Vice President, Harry Truman, uninformed on all war and postwar issues, such as the atomic bomb, leading Truman to remark, wryly, that the job of the Vice President was to "go to weddings and funerals." Following Roosevelt's death and Truman's ascension to the presidency, the need to keep 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.
Richard Nixon reinvented the office of Vice President. He had the attention of the media and the Republican party, when Dwight Eisenhower ordered him to preside at Cabinet meetings in his absence. Nixon was also the first Vice President to assume temporary control of the executive branch, which he did after Eisenhower suffered a heart attack on September 24, 1955, ileitis in June 1956, and a stroke in November 1957.
Until 1961, vice presidents had their offices on Capitol Hill, a formal office in the Capitol itself and a working office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Lyndon B. Johnson was the first vice president to be given an office in the White House complex, in the Old Executive Office Building. The former Navy Secretary's office in the OEOB has since been designated the "Ceremonial Office of the Vice President" and is today used for formal events and press interviews. President Jimmy Carter was the first President to give his vice president, Walter Mondale, an office in the West Wing of the White House, which all vice presidents have since retained. Because of their function as Presidents of the Senate, vice presidents still maintain offices and staff members on Capitol Hill.
Though Walter Mondale's tenure was the beginning of the modern day power of the Vice Presidency, the tenure of Dick Cheney saw a rapid growth in the office of the Vice President. Vice President Cheney held a tremendous amount of power and frequently made policy decisions on his own, without the knowledge of the President. After his tenure, and during the 2008 Presidential campaign, both Vice Presidential candidates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, stated that the office had expanded too much under Cheney's tenure and both had planned to reduce the role to simply being an adviser to the President.
Postâ€"Vice Presidency
The five former Vice Presidents now living are:
Four vice presidents have been elected to the presidency immediately after serving as vice president: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren and George H.W. Bush. Richard M. Nixon, John C. Breckenridge, Hubert H. Humphrey and Al Gore were all nominated by their respective parties, but failed to succeed the presidents with whom they were elected though Nixon was elected president eight years later. Some former vice presidents have sought other offices after stepping down as vice president. John C. Calhoun resigned as vice president to accept election as US Senator from South Carolina. Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson, Alben Barkley and Hubert H. Humphrey were all re-elected to the Senate after leaving office. Levi P. Morton, vice president under Benjamin Harrison, was elected Governor of New York after leaving office.
Two vice presidents served under different presidents. George Clinton served under both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, while John C. Calhoun served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. In the modern era, Adlai Stevenson I became the first vice president to seek re-election with a different running mate, running in 1900 with William Jennings Bryan after serving under Bryan's rival, Grover Cleveland. He was also narrowly defeated for Governor of Illinois in 1908. Charles W. Fairbanks, vice president under Theodore Roosevelt, sought unsuccessfully to return to office as Charles Evans Hughes' running mate in 1916.
Richard M. Nixon unsuccessfully sought the governorship of California in 1962, nearly two years after leaving office as vice president and just over six years before becoming president. Walter Mondale ran unsuccessfully for president in 1984, served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996, and then sought unsuccessfully to return to the Senate in 2002. George H. W. Bush won the presidency, and his vice president, Dan Quayle, sought the Republican nomination in 2000. Al Gore also ran unsuccessful for the presidency in 2000, turning to environmental advocacy afterward. Cheney had previously explored the possibility of running for President before serving as vice president, but chose not to run for president after his two terms as vice president.
Since 1977, former presidents and vice presidents who are elected or re-elected to the Senate are entitled to the largely honorific position of Deputy President pro tempore. So far, the only former vice president to have held this title is Hubert H. Humphrey following his return to the Senate. Walter Mondale would have been entitled to the position had his 2002 Senate bid been successful.
Under the terms of an 1886 Senate resolution, all former vice presidents are entitled to a portrait bust in the Senate wing of the United States Capitol, commemorating their service as presidents of the Senate. Dan Quayle is the most recent former vice president to be so honored.
Former vice presidents are eligible for pensions, and have been entitled to Secret Service personal protection since 2008. Former vice presidents traditionally receive Secret Service protection for up to six months after leaving office, by order of the Secretary of Homeland Security. In 2008, a bill titled the "Former Vice President Protection Act" was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush. It provides six-month Secret Service protection by law to a former vice president and family. According to the Department of Homeland Security, protection for former vice president Cheney has been extended numerous times because threats against him have not decreased since his leaving office.
Timeline of Vice Presidents
This is a graphical timeline listing of the Vice Presidents of the United States.
See also
- List of Vice Presidents of the United States
- List of Vice Presidents of the United States by age
- Office of the Vice President of the United States
Notes and references
Further reading
- Goldstein, Joel K. (1982). The Modern American Vice Presidency. Princeton University Press. ISBNÂ 0-691-02208-9.Â
- Tally, Steve (1992). Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quayleâ€"The Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats, and Golfers Who Made It to Vice President. Harcourt. ISBN 0-15-613140-4.Â
External links
- White House website for the Vice President
- Vice-President Elect Chester Arthur on Expectations of VP Shapell Manuscript Foundation
- A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787â€"1825
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