In the old days the Vice President was elected separately from the President so, as an elected offical, he couldn’t be fired by the President.
Now the Vice President shares the ticket with the President. Do we really vote for the President and just get the VP or do we technically vote for both thus still making the VP an elected official?
Just to stir the pot imagine the President catches the Vice President boinking the First Lady. Also assume that this is not enough to get the VP impeached (we do have some precedent for that). Is the President stuck working with this guy if Congress won’t boot him out?
If the President did fire the VP does the President pick a successor or the Senate? (For this question assume the VP just dies of natural causes…I don’t know what happens if the VP dies in office).
The VP is elected by the Electoral College. No, the President cannot fire him. Yes, he can be impeached for anything Congress feels merits doing so.
The President doesn’t have to give him anything to do, and doesn’t even have to talk to him. His only Constitutional responsibility is to preside over the Senate, and cast tie-breaking votes there.
Oh, since you asked: Under the 23rd(?) Amendment, if there is a vacancy in the VP office, the President nominates a successor, who takes office upon ratification by the Senate. The only time that’s happened was when Gerald Ford suceeded to the Presidency after Nixon’s resignation, and nominated Nelson Rockefeller to be the new VP.
The rules used to be different - if the VP died, the office would stay vacant until the next election.
The president could always try to fire the VP. It would provoke an enormous Constitutional crisis. However, since Jefferson never fired Burr and Jackson never fired Calhoun, I suppose a president and veep can get along in a lot of different situations.
Really? How did Ford become VP? Wasn’t it the same way?
What I really want to know is what happened in the case of an assassination - the amendment wasn’t ratified until 1967. Was a VP appointed, or did they leave the office vacant? If it was appointed, how?
By the way, it is the 25th amendment. The 23rd amendment was “the District of Columbia gets Electors in the Electoral college.” (simplified for brevity.)
Prior to said amendment, when the VP died or succeeded to the office of President, the position of Vice President remained open until a new one was elected in the regular course of elections. So, for example, Andrew Johnson (who took over the Presidency after Lincoln was assassinated) never had a Vice President.
Anticipating the next question, if Andrew Johnson had been convicted and removed from office, his successor would have been Ben Wade, the Senate President Pro Tem. He was from Ohio and had actually already lost his reelection bid for the Senate. He would have only been president for a few months.
After the VP, the order of sucession is set by Congress and it has changed several times throughout history.
Yes, when Andrew Johnson was president, the order of succession was different. The Speaker of the House became third in line many years later.
Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller were both appointed vice president to fill a vacancy (Ford to replace Agnew, who resigned, Rockefeller to replace Ford when he became president). Prior to that, if the VP took over after the death of a president, the position remained vacant until the next election.