Gotta quibble on this one- the VP can only vote in the event of a tie. You could argue that when he does vote, it’s the only one the matters but in practice he gets very few opportunities to vote.
I think Harris should and will accept the VP slot. I don’t think Biden will run for a second term and she would be the heir apparent.
So suppose we changed things to let the VP vote in every vote. How would the result be at all different from what it is now? In terms of outcomes, it’s no different, which means that we can only compare in the intangibles of the positions. And on the intangibles, VP is a much higher position than Senator.
I wondered about this so checked the Wikipedia page.
It shows that Joe Biden never, not once, broke a tie vote when he was Vice Pres. This may be due, in large part, to the 60% cloture rule — Ties don’t occur on cloture votes. The voting for Obamacare was VERY close, but the Ds weren’t trying for 51% — they needed 60% so Biden’s vote was useless. LBJ and Dan Quayle are among other V.P.'s who never cast a tie-breaking vote.
Contrast this with Mike Pence who has cast 13 tie-breaking votes, more than any other Vice President since Schuyler Colfax almost 150 years ago! I guess I was right when I wrote last year, it takes 51% of the votes to pass an R Senate, but 60% to pass a D Senate.
And Pence’s record of 13 tie-breakers is set with less than 2½ years in office. The record for the entire 20th century was 9 tie-breakers, set by Woodrow Wilson’s 8-year Vice President.
I still remember when Al Gore broke the tie and got the Deficit Reduction Act passed. Since the deficit reduction required a tax hike, they only wanted 50 Senators to “walk the plank;” if Al Gore did not need to break a tie it would have shown miscalculation. But Al Gore broke only 4 ties in 8 years; and two of the ties were on the Deficit Reduction Act.
Ah, right, I forgot that Senators count for cloture, but not the VP. Yeah, that’s a relevant advantage of a Senator, then. Though it would be irrelevant if we were to finally get rid of that stupid rule.
Yes, I know that. And I posted it long ago. And I rolled my eyes as he stood in front of the NRA convention and babbled that he’d never betray gun owners rights.
Then the moment something happened he started in about raising the age to buy rifles, bans on certain firearms, and bans on pieces of plastic.
The NRA rolled over and played dead! :mad:
It’s not the ban itself on bump stocks that is tyrannical. It’s the way in which they were banned. For over a decade the BATF issued decrees that the stocks weren’t machine guns, didn’t turn a gun into a machine gun, and were perfectly legal. Then
Trump waves his hand and suddenly they are illegal, sans any law passed by Congress. That is not the way laws are supposed to be enacted. Hundreds of thousands of American citizens were forced to surrender or destroy their previously lawfully owned property with no due process and no compensation, or be guilty of a serious federal offense.
The precedent itself should be frightening regardless of your opinion of the legality of bump stocks.
Since I really have no clue who Beto O’Rourke will pick as his running mate, I’m afraid I cannot answer the OP completely. I will say though that whomever he picks will be the next Vice President of the United States. Yes, I went there.
I do not know. If I had to vote right now, I would not consider myself well-informed. That said, Pete Buttigieg looks like an ideal pick for Veep.
I can see him dumping Pence, but I think it would dumb. I can’t stand the sonofabitch’s fake piety, but if I were looking at the strength of Pence, I’d say he’s been pretty much a stalwart. He’s been relatively controversy free and even managed to stay out of the Russia investigation for the most part. Part of being a good vice president is knowing how to be a largely invisible but tough wing man for the president. Pence has been that.
The only justification for dumping pence is if Trump believes he’s truly solid with the evangelical crowd and that it’s safe for him to go out and create some new excitement and enthusiasm with a new VP. That would be risky, especially with polls already showing he’s going to be in a dogfight. Maybe he dumps Pence for another hardcore conservative in a rust belt state like Rick Santorum.
There is no reason whatsoever why he would dump Pence or why any incumbent would dump the previous vice president. How did this even come up in this discussion?
Since I’m in a state where the primary never means anything, threads like this are closest I’ll get to having a say about who the candidates are.
If Biden remains the front runner and is positioned to be the nominee, I could see the crusty Pub contingent who care less about social issues and populist crap and more about stability and predictability in economic and foreign affairs being just fine with if not outright preferring Sleepy Joe to Don The Con. They may not be able to overcome their cognitive dissonance to the point of actually voting for Biden, but staying home on election night, well, that’d be doable. It would also give them a chance to resettle their self-satisfaction by affording them an opportunity to cancel out their 2016 Trump vote.
But if Haley were on the ticket, the intrapersonal redemption of not voting for Trump would then be competing with their life-long Grand Old Party loyalty. Said Party loyalty would win, the Establishment would stay aboard, and the GOP would further consummate it’s transformation into The Trump Party.
Pence doesn’t bring anything to the ticket. Haley or Martinez would add a politically savvy woman. If Trump self destructs or is politically destroyed it will difficult to fill a Pence ticket. Pence/Palin would be a match.
Without Trump things might get rational. Best case - dump Pence and support Haley with a viable VP candidate.
Neither are dumb enough to take it.
Pence doesn’t bring anything the ticket? Bullshit. Trump would not have had a shot in hell of winning over Evangelical Christians and the Bible Belt without Pence. It was one of the most savvy strategic choices of Trump’s entire campaign.
Agreed, but with PA sagging, I’ve wondered whether or not he could find another man of the cloth (Rick Santorum).
Evangelicals accept Trump as one who has strayed then returned to the fold. They like Pence but he is not a necessary part of the political package.
It’s all Trump and Trump has to expand his base to win. Santorum would just be more of the same.
Slam dunk!
Next: Trump’s Mike drop. Long shot, perhaps, but Trumps gotta knows Killer Kamala will shred Pasty Pence.
Congratulations to everyone who thought Biden/Harris.
He’s going to switch to Kanye. Can’t think of a more interesting[1] ticket.
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[1] Chinese definition, of course.