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What do U.S. vice presidents do? [1]
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Date: 2024-09-27 23:05:00+00:00
In November, Americans will vote for tickets that include candidates not just for a president but also for vice president, even as they vote as well for other offices and on local initiatives.
While a vice-presidential candidate gets less attention from pundits, or even voters, than a presidential candidate does, a vice president is influential after being sworn in to office.
American University Professor Allan Lichtman, known for predicting which presidential candidate will win based on his “13 Keys to the White House,” says the running mates have “zero” influence on election outcomes. He pays more attention to the state of the economy or the political environment.
But after a ticket wins, the second-in-command can have a major impact on how the country is governed.
Christopher Devine, associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton, who studies vice presidential politics, says that while being vice president has not always been such a big deal — Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first vice president, John Nance Garner, once famously said the job wasn’t worth “a warm bucket of spit“ — times have changed.
“It is a really important position,” Devine says.
The U.S. Constitution originally envisioned a small role for American vice presidents. The role was taken by whoever finished second in the presidential race. That was changed when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in 1800 and it took Congress months to break the stalemate. An 1804 constitutional amendment established separate electoral college votes for president and vice president. As a result, each subsequent presidential candidate has formed a ticket with a chosen vice-presidential nominee.
Growing power of the VP
The Constitution gives the vice president the tie-breaking power in the U.S. Senate and a role as the chief presiding officer there, so the first American vice presidents spent most of their time in Congress. “For most of the 19th century, the vice president was primarily a legislative position and presided over the Senate as a full-time occupant,” says Joel K. Goldstein, emeritus professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law and an expert on the vice presidency.
But over recent decades, presidents themselves have chosen to broaden their VPs’ jobs. Jimmy Carter, elected president in 1976 as a Washington outsider, relied on running mate Walter Mondale’s Washington savvy and made him a true partner and adviser, according to Goldstein.
Subsequent presidents continued that practice. Dick Cheney, vice president under President George W. Bush, had been a member of Congress and defense secretary and thus offered Bush valuable legislative and foreign policy experience, Lichtman says.
The recent raised stature of vice presidents is a contrast to when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945. His vice president, Harry Truman, had to be pulled aside and told of the country’s secret plan to build an atomic bomb.
The growth of the country’s population and of its federal government raises the importance of having a capable presidential successor, notes Goldstein.
Aside from breaking tie votes in the Senate and stepping in when the president can’t fulfill his responsibilities, the modern vice president leads efforts on particular topics the president wants to focus on, makes foreign trips as a high-level emissary and offers advice to the president.
“If used properly they can be a strong ally — someone who doesn’t have a piece of bureaucratic turf to defend,” Devine says.
If chosen well, “the bucket of spit has turned into a pile of coins,” as far as some presidents are concerned, Lichtman observes.
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