Cheney not in executive branch

Great Debates
1

http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1371 I can not wait for the defenders of Cheney to work around this one. Apparently Cheney has claimed the VP is not part of the executive branch of government. Therefore he is not held to the same standards for retaining email and correspondence that other branches ,particularly the President have to. I looked up a chart and the executive branch showed president and vice president listed below. What can I be missing?

2

I believe this is not the first time Cheney has used this argument. Technically, the VP’s only constitutional role is to preside over the Senate and cast a tiebreaker vote (both functions rarely exercised). The VP technically has no subordinates in any chain of command within the Executive Branch.

Technically.

3

Error! Page Not Found !! This is a chart showing VP as in executive.

4

But there’s no one under him, is there?

5

Well, when you consider his trampling of the Constitution, one should not be surprised.

6

I do note that Cheney is asserting he is not in the Executive only “for purposes of securing classified information.” If a Congressional committee asks him to testify about something he would rather not discuss, he will, of course, invoke “executive privilege” in a heartbeat (or its equivalent in Cheney’s anatomy). Yet another instance of this Admin trying to have it both ways – like Guantanamo Bay, which is held to be outside U.S. territory for legal and constitutional purposes even though the U.S. controls it.

7

Of course, any member of Congress can be expelled by a simple majority vote of his or her house. No impeachment is required. So . . .

:smiley:

8

Well, he’s definitely not a member of Congress, although he actually might be a member of the Legislative branch. While it’s called vice-pres, I don’t atually see anything specific in the COnstitution which specifies it. The President essentially is the executive, Congress legislative, supreme court judicial, etc. The VP was originally such a different post.

9

When the president gets impeached ,who takes over. Would that not put the VP in executive by itself.

10

I’ve just done a quick search – this isn’t exacrly new – Cheney’s office made this claim back in February, but nobody seems to have noticed:

11

Here it is in a February issue of U.S. News and World Report:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070208/8cheney.htm?s_cid=rss:site1

12

Dang! It’s even older than that! Here’s an article that apparently appeared in the San Jose Mercury on April 30, 2006:

How come this has only been noticed now, over a year later?

13

It looks like all the civics books were wrong for all these year. The United States actually has four branches of government:

The Executive Branch
The Judicial Branch
The Legislative Branch
…and…
The Dick Branch.

(swiped from Rahm Emmanuel)

14

Whaddya mean, no-one noticed? The Dopers noticed!

Is the Office of the Vice-President part of the Executive Branch?

15

Cheney apparently believes he can do what ever he wants.

16

I’ve no doubt that if the Veep was clearly in the legislative branch and subject to some form of congressional disclosure, Cheney’d be claiming executive privilege.

17

I missed that (the title didn’t make it obvious that it was in response to a Cheney announcement), but even Dopers didn’t sem to catch the 2006 announcement.

18

Of course the veep’s office shouldn’t open up its secrets. If it did, who knows what would happen? Maybe somebody might leak the name of a CIA operative. Next time anyone thinks of impeaching Chimpy, just say the words “President Cheney” and that will sober you up.

19

Not really. Succession also includes the Speaker of the House, and he/she isn’t in the executive branch.

20

While that’s true, Liberal, the VP is next in line after the President. Then Speaker of the House, IIRC.

Unless you’re Al Haig, then all bets are off.