The question is pretty much in the title. Is there a reason this couldn’t happen? Traditionally the office of Vice-President hasn’t been much more than stay healthy and show up to break ties in the Senate. While the VP can choose to preside over Senate sessions my understanding is that the President pro tempore of the Senate fills in if she/he can’t make it. I’m aware in recent years Presidents have given the VP more responsibility but why not put them in a Cabinet post?
My reason for bringing this up was a conversation I was party to where people were discussing Susan Rice and Joe Biden. The assumption was that she would be an amazing pick for VP but others felt she would be better suited to serve as Secretary of State. My suggestion was, why not both? Yeah, I understand SOS requires Senate confirmation but if control of the Senate were to flip that wouldn’t really be an issue. Is there some other reason this couldn’t happen?
The Constitution says nothing about a Cabinet so there is no constitutional bar. I doubt if Congress could pass any legislation regulating the executive branch in this way, either.
Since the rule in American politics is that anything that can happen will, or at least be proposed, it actually came up in 1980.
Reagan’s team didn’t like any of the choices for VP. Ford was still the second favorite Republican. According to Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy in The President’s Club, Reagan and Ford met during the Republican convention and Reagan offered him the post. As a sweetener he said he would give Ford a cabinet position as well, probably Secretary of Defense. (Ford, unbelievably, wanted Kissinger as Secretary of State.) Ford knew this kind of co-presidency couldn’t work but he also couldn’t bring himself to say no on the spot. He dithered until the next day when he finally declined.
But at no point, apparently, did anybody say that it would be illegal to be in the cabinet.
The only thing barring this that I can see, and it’s extraordinarily vague so feel free to shoot this down, is that it could create a conflict of interest between the VP’s role as President of the Senate and his Cabinet position (given that the VP’s role is largely ceremonial, he is the sole exception to the rule that you can’t work for more than one branch of the U.S. government at a time).
I don’t see how that would be an issue. The President pro tempore presides over most sessions as I understand it. I’ve been under the impression VPs typically only show up for close votes where it may be necessary for them to break a tie. I suppose I could be wrong about that. It would require coordination of SOS travel with potentially close, important votes but I think that could be easily managed.
Agreed. It would have to be a virtual perfect storm of circumstances where the issue would ever come up… Still, if there’s one thing America is great at, it’s snatching the unlikely out of the jaws of probability.
My recollection was that Reagan wanted Ford to be VP, but Ford proposed the “co-presidency” which Reagan politely declined. I could be misremembering though.
I suppose an argument could be made that as President of the Senate, the VP could be considered a “Senator.” It’s a stretch, but it might work.
Nitpick. The President pro tempore rarely presides over the Senate. Usually it is some deputy president pro tempore or some junior senator who gets the thankless task of sitting there as usually nothing of substance happens on the Senate floor. Also, tie-breaking is another thing dying a slow death knell with the recent practice of filibustering everything and requiring 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate.
We’ve also seen just this year another example when the Chief Justice presided over the senate during the impeachment. The VP isn’t a Senator, they can’t vote or argue on the floor, they’re just there to break ties. Pence has actually has to break quite a few, but that’s been mainly to allow a few Republicans to escape controversial votes.
As far as being in the cabinet, they could but it would be stupid. Let’s say there’s a VP Duckworth, rather than making her VA Secretary as well, she and the actual secretary could split things up.
I don’t think there’s any constitutional impediment to it, but it could be awkward if POTUS and the VPOTUS/Secretary had a major disagreement on policy. POTUS could fire the person as a Cabinet secretary but not as VPOTUS.
FWIW, lieutenant governors in some states, including Ohio, also hold Cabinet posts. In New Jersey, under the state constitution, the governor must appoint the LG to head a Cabinet department, but not as attorney general.