The United States Of America

The Constitution And Democracy

Vice President of the United States
Vice President of the United States, the second-highest ranking official in the U.S. government. The President and vice president are the only nationally elected officials. If the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, the vice president succeeds him. In addition, the vice president may serve temporarily as acting president if the president, for whatever reason, is unable to discharge the duties of the office. Like the president, the vice president must be at least 35 years old.

The Constitution of the United States prescribes only one duty for the vice president. He is the president, or presiding officer, of the U.S. Senate, and if a Senate vote ends in a tie the vice president may vote to break the tie. The vice president has been assigned other duties by statute, and the president may give him other responsibilities. The importance of the vice president derives almost entirely from the fact that at any moment he may succeed to the most powerful office in the world.

The Succession Problem
The office of vice president was created at the constitutional convention in 1787. The Constitution, in Article II, Section 1, provided: "In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President. ... "

This passage was ambiguous. Did "the Same" refer to the words "Powers and Duties" or to the word "Office"? In short, if a president died, would the vice president become only the acting president or would he be president in every sense of the word? In 1841, President William Henry HARRISON  died after a brief illness. Vice President John TYLER , the first man to confront the problem, contended that he had become president. He took the presidential oath. Some constitutional scholars disputed his claim, but his precedent became established. Between 1841 and 1963, eight presidents died in office. The successor to each was recognized both officially and by the public as the president.

Long after Tyler had successfully asserted his claim to the presidency, research established that the "founding fathers" had intended that the vice president serve only as acting president should the president die, and that the committee on style, in writing the Constitution, had introduced the ambiguity unintentionally.
Tyler's precedent created another problem. Suppose that Harrison had remained alive but seriously ill and unable to discharge his duties. Suppose further that Tyler, using the same reasoning as before, had claimed the presidency on the basis of the same clause quoted above. Also, suppose that Harrison had recovered and sought to regain his office. If Tyler were in fact president, instead of acting as president, there would be no apparent means by which Harrison could resume his office.

Later, Presidents James GARFIELD  and Woodrow WILSON  were seriously disabled for months. In neither case did the vice president--Chester Alan ARTHUR  and Thomas MARSHALL , respectively--seek to displace the president. Both vice presidents were concerned that the president might recover from his disability, reassert his claim to the office, and create constitutional chaos.
After the assassination of President John KENNEDY  in 1963, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution was approved by Congress and ratified in February 1967. It surmounts the ambiguity in Article II, Section 1, declaring that if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, "the Vice President shall become President."

But the 25th Amendment also establishes that if the president declares himself unable to discharge his duties, the vice president becomes only "Acting President." Under certain conditions, the vice president may declare the president disabled--if the president will not or cannot do so himself--and he then becomes acting president. 

Another clause of the 25th Amendment became dramatically relevant in 1973 and 1974. Within a year both Vice President Spiro AGNEW  and President Richard NIXON  resigned their offices. The 25th Amendment provides that when the vice presidency becomes vacant the president shall appoint a successor, subject to majority approval by both houses of Congress. (As a result of 15 deaths and three resignations of presidents and vice presidents, the office has been vacant a total of about 37 years.) After Agnew pleaded no contest to a charge of income tax evasion and resigned, Nixon nominated Congressman Gerald FORD </presidents/ea/bios/38pford.html> (R-Mich.) to succeed him. Following a thorough and relatively nonpartisan investigation, Congress approved Ford. Eight months later, Nixon's public career collapsed under the weight of the Watergate  scandal, and he resigned. Ford succeeded him and nominated Nelson ROCKEFELLER  to be vice president. After an inquiry that consumed four months, Congress approved Rockefeller.

The Vice President's Job
The vice president is elected with the president and is his potential successor. The vice president, however, is also the presiding officer of the U. S. Senate--in a government supposedly founded on the principle of the separation of powers.
In this anomalous position, vice presidents have often experienced frustration. They may not participate in Senate debate, and attempts to "lobby" on Capitol Hill in behalf of the administration's programs may only antagonize the senators. In practice, the vice president presides on ceremonial occasions and when Senate leaders expect a close vote. On most other occasions, senators take turns as presiding officer.

Since 1933, the vice presidents have attended meetings of the president's Cabinet. By statute, the vice president is a member of the National Security Council. By executive order, he serves on the Domestic Council, which formulates policy recommendations for the president. From the 1940s the office "grew" as presidents began assigning other substantive tasks to their vice presidents. During World War II, Henry Wallace served for a time as chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare. President EISENHOWER  sent Vice President Nixon on a number of missions abroad that involved both ceremonial occasions and some significant diplomatic conversations. Nixon's successors have also traveled extensively. President Ford named Vice President Rockefeller to head a commission to investigate allegations against Central Intelligence Agency officials. Vice President Walter MONDALE  became one of President Jimmy CARTER 's most trusted advisers.

Under the Constitution "the executive power" rests solely with the president. Therefore, areas of responsibility cannot simply be shifted from the president to the vice president. For that reason the office of vice president remains a relatively empty one, which many energetic and able leaders have been reluctant to accept.
Nominations, Elections, and "Politics."

The Constitution originally prescribed that the president and vice president be chosen by members of the Electoral College, each of whom would cast two votes. The person receiving the second greatest number of votes would become vice president. Each elector, in casting his two votes, had no way of indicating which person he preferred for president. Within a few years, political parties were putting up two-man teams for the two national offices. In 1804 the Anti federalists chose Thomas JEFFERSON  and Aaron BURR  for president and vice president, respectively. Electors favoring Jefferson and Burr voted for both men, creating a tie vote in the Electoral College. In the House Of Representatives, where the tie was resolved, the Federalists supported Burr against their arch foe Jefferson, who barely won Election.

The original electoral system was then scrapped and replaced with the 12th Amendment (1804), which provides that electors vote separately for president and vice president. Unfortunately, after 1804 the vice-presidential nomination quickly became a consolation prize often awarded to the faction of the party that had lost out in the contest for the presidential nomination. This desire of political parties to "balance" their tickets carried the likelihood that the person succeeding a president who died in office would not share his political philosophy. In 1850, for example, President Zachary TAYLOR , who opposed the Compromise of 1850, died and was succeeded by Millard FILLMORE , who supported it. Since World War II, however, most vice-presidential nominees have held views close to those held by the presidential nominees.

Vice-presidential nominees often have been selected in haste in conferences between the just-chosen presidential nominee and his advisers. The choice may not be given sufficiently serious thought. But in 1944, Democratic party leaders feared, accurately, that President Franklin ROOSEVELT  would die during his next term, and they succeeded in denying renomination to Vice President Henry WALLACE , whom they regarded as not suited to be president.

Despite long-standing criticism of the nomination process, both major parties were embarrassed as recently as 1972. The Republicans renominated Spiro AGNEW , and the Democrats chose Sen. Thomas Eagleton (Mo.), who resigned from the ticket within three weeks after acknowledging that he had received electroshock treatments for depression. On the recommendation of Sen. George McGovern (S. Dak.), the presidential nominee, the Democratic National Committee named Sargent Shriver, former director of the Peace Corps, to replace Eagleton.

Once the vice-presidential nominee is chosen, he delivers speeches echoing the presidential nominee's views on the issues of the campaign. Presidential nominees have encouraged their running mates to speak out sharply against the opposition party, even to the extent of making charges that the presidential nominee eschews in order to preserve his lofty, statesmanlike image. Unfortunately, this practice has carried over into some administrations, with vice presidents serving as spearheads for White House  attacks on the opposition party. Vice President HUMPHREY  exalted President Lyndon JOHNSON  in his public statements and harshly criticized opponents of Johnson's conduct of the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration's hostility toward the press found a voice in Agnew, who delivered a series of abrasive speeches approved by the White House. Agnew characterized some elements of the press and partisan opponents of Nixon as effete, reckless, and elitist.

Salary and Perquisites 
The vice president's salary of $79,125, plus $10,000 for expenses, is supplemented (since 1975) by annual cost-of-living increases, as determined by the president. The Secret Service guards the vice president and family. In 1974, Congress designated a Washington mansion formerly occupied by the chief of naval operations as the vice president's official residence. The vice president maintains offices in the Capitol and the Executive Office Building.

Donald Young
Author of American Roulette: The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presidency
For Further Reading 
Goldstein, Joel K., The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution (Princeton Univ. Press 1981)
Light, Paul C., Vice Presidential Power (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press 1983)
Natoli, Marie D., American Prince, American Pauper: The Contemporary Vice Presidency in Perspective (Greenwood Press 1985)
Tally, Steve W., Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quayle--The Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats, and Golfers Who Made It to Vice President (Harcourt 1992)
Young, Donald, American Roulette: The History and Dilemma of the Vice Presidency (1965; reprint, Viking 1974)