Does his breath smell like cat food?
And yet…
Then Byrd moved in for the kill. He started calling up amendment after amendment, and Mondale, just as rapidly, ruled each amendment out of order. In just nine minutes, 33 amendments were axed. It was an unprecedented way to short-circuit Senate business, and dozens of enraged Senators leaped to their feet to protest. Mondale stonily recognized only Byrd.
What of this?
I think we’re veering off of what Palin actually said into these red herring arguments.
Palin said, essentially, that she sought to use the position of President of the Senate in some way that other VPs have forgone in order to push McCain’s agenda.
I have to say, Mondale ruling amendments out of order really had less to do with Carter’s agenda than it did for trying to enforce the cloture rule. This episode screams out the legal axiom, tough cases make bad law – which was quite nearly true, in a sense, in that those events were cited as precedent for Republicans nearly carrying out the Nuclear Option WRT judicial nominations. In any case, I would strain to see Mondale as getting in there with the senators and making good policies for the nation, or however that was phrased.
I think there’s a big difference between Palin’s implication that she would be involved or contributing to the drafting of legislation and Mondale’s parliamentary wrecking ball. I see it as the difference between being a craftsman of fine furniture and a demolition team with sledge hammers. In the Senate, it is very easy to be a lump on a log, not much harder to be a pain in everyone’s ass, but very difficult to be a useful, to say nothing of being indispensable, part of the creative legislative process.
Hmm…“unprecedented”. “Short-circuit Senate business”. “Enraged Senators”. “Protest.” And what about the very next line from that article, that you didn’t quote? “When Maine’s Ed Muskie eventually got the floor, he accused the Vice President of arbitrarily creating “a new order of things, a change in the rules.””
Or the line immediately after that: "Colorado Democrat Gary Hart charged that “the U.S. Senate has seen an outrageous act.’”’
Doesn’t sound like the VP was exercising any sort of business-as-usual, commonly-accepted powers to me, but was, in fact, doing something that he was not supposed to be doing (as even members of his own party like Gary Hart above were outraged when it happened). Otherwise, why there be bipartisan anger when it happened, if Mondale was just doing what vice presidents do?
And, in fact, in the immediate aftermath of the above incident, changes to the Senate rule that allowed it to happen were proposed and committees to do so organized. Which again raises the question - if Mondale was simply exercising the powers of vice president granted to him by the Constitution, how could the Senate have even considered changing them?
But that’s not really the point.
Critics of Palin have responded to her assertions by saying that the Vice-President has no power except for tiebreaking votes - yet there are instances where the Vice-President has constitutional powers and responsibilities beyond this - even in the Senate. Many of these have been cited. One simply cannot wish these away.
Now, criticize Palin for many things - she’s open to it, certainly, but just make sure when you do that your own assertions concerning the Constitution are correct.
Excuse me? I never said it was business as usual. I do think it was constitutional, though, and I’d like for you to prove to me that it wasn’t.
Because the Senate has never taken an action that was found to be unconstitutional?
Chris Matthews (Hardball) pretty much filleted Nancy Pfotenhauer last night on this very issue. If you didn’t see it, it’s worth the watch just to see Nancy speechless at the end. Chris has an opinion on Palin’s “in charge” comment too.
(The video is about 9 1/2 minutes long)
And no member of the executive branch has, either?
Let’s be clear: the only differences between some senator acting as the presiding officer and the Vice President acting as presiding officer are that 1) the VP can cast a tiebreaking vote, 2) the VP is allowed under very limited circumstances to address the Senate, whereas a senator in the chair is not, 3) the VP would take precedence in presiding, and 4) there may be some intangible message sent by having the VP preside at a given moment.
Presiding over the Senate typically means that the chair takes cues from the party’s leader in terms of floor strategy and the Parliamentarian in terms of rulings. What Mondale did could have been done by literally any Democratic senator, with the exception of point #4 above.
Now, if the presiding officer had the degree of influence that you seem to be arguing, one might expect that, in the absence of the Vice President, many senators would seek to preside over the Senate in order to exercise the power that Palin seems to think is there.
Except that isn’t the case. The job of presiding over the Senate is routinely given to the most junior senators, because they lack the clout to get out of the job.
So, if the presiding officer of the Senate is as powerful as you and Palin make it out to be, why do you suppose that more powerful or influential senators are not clamoring to do the job?
And, of course, when discussions and committees were held in the aftermath of that (or, indeed, ANY time the Rules of the Senate have been changed - especially for the most recent suggestion to add a whole new Rule to the list), Constitutional Law scholars have been all over this, yes?
Or before 1917, when that selfsame Rule 22 which allowed the VP to do what you’re saying he is permitted per the Constitution itself was actually introduced, there were lawyers and scholars galore decrying how the VP was being prevented from exercising his Constitutional duties for all those decades before this happened, correct?
Mondale as VP abused a loophole in Rule 22, a rule that gave him a power not mentioned in the Constitution and which was created by the Senate a hundred and fifty years after the establishment of the office of Vice President. Unless you’re arguing that the Senate cannot now, under the Constitution of the United States, abolish Rule 22 if they wanted to and thus strip the vice presidency of that power, it is not part of the Constitutional duties of the VP and is only permtted to him by the whim of the Senate at large.
No, the VP has powers and responsibilities granted by the Constitution, and other powers and responsibilities that are granted by the Senate itself and so can also be removed by them at any time. The VP casts tiebreaking votes, takes over for the President if the President is unable to continue serving for whatever reason, and “presides” over the Senate. And that’s it.
What “presides” means and what additonal powers the VP has is entirely malleable and can be added to, removed, or changed at any time, and thus are not Constitutional powers of the office.
It’s not “Constitutional” in the sense that it’s a power specifically given to the VP by that document. The Senate cannot abrogate the VP’s ability to vote on ties, but they can certainly take the ability to do what Mondale did away from the office.
In other words, the answer to the question “What does the Vice President do” is not “They’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes”, but “Cast tiebreaking votes, take over for the President if needed, and whatever else the Senate permits him or her to do under the rules that the Senate as a whole sets and can change at any time.”
Where have I made it out to be overly powerful? No reading of my posts would convey that impression at all. The identification of centers of power and the determination of a proper constitutional role are two totally separate questions - not wholly unrelated, but separate.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are considerably powerful, but their constitutional role in the government is exactly identical to yours and mine - they are voters. So it is necessary to draw distinctions here - just as Bricker and I have attempted to do and as others here have avoided doing.
In the case of Mondale, when he did what he did apart from being associated with the administration he was isolated from direct day to day dealings with other senators and the Senate leadership. His actions in the chair would cause no repercussions against him - while they might have done so against a junior senator. There were adverse consequences for his administration, but this was a risk Carter and Mondale seemed willing to take on at the time.
In any case, he had the power to do so, given what is plainly spelled out in Article I.
Who said anything about “overly powerful”?
But “the identification of centers of power and the determination of a proper constitutional role [being] two totally separate questions” is exactly what I’m addressing. The VP has powers given to him by the Constitution and that cannot be altered, and powers given to him by the Senate which can be altered at any time.
No, he had the power to do what he did given what is plainly spelled out in Rule 22 of the Senate, which is why he got away with it. Rule 22 of the Senate did not exist before 1917. Rule 22 of the Senate can be removed at any time.
No VP before 1917 could have done what Mondale did. If the Senate abolishes Rule 22 tomorrow, no VP after that can do what Mondale did either. The Constitution said nothing about that specific power in the century before 1917, and would have nothing to say about it should Rule 22 be removed.
In short, that power is not a Constitutional power of the vice president. It’s an ephemeral power, given to the VP per the whim of the Senate, and can be taken away at any time.
You can completely and accurately say “The Constitution states that the VP can cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate.” But you cannot say “The Constitution states that the VP can do what Mondale did”, because it doesn’t.
But Rule 22 did exist during the time that Palin made her comments?
Which is why I said in post 212 that the answer to the question “What does the Vice President do” is not “They’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes”, but “Cast tiebreaking votes, take over for the President if needed, and whatever else the Senate permits him or her to do under the rules that the Senate as a whole sets and can change at any time.”
If someone says to you “Hey, you can borrow my car for a bit, but the title is still in my name and I may want it back at any time”, you can’t really go around saying “This is my car and I can do whatever I want with it”.
It would seem as if some posters would say that the office of Speaker of the House has no power at all since the constitution doesn’t define those powers and can simply be taken away on a whim by the House.
No, but he or she has no Constitutional power, and in fact the role of Speaker has varied quite a bit in power, influence, and duties over the years, and at one point early in the 20th Century the House removed a lot of the powers the position had accumulated to that point, because certain Congressmen thought recent had gotten too big for their britches and abused the power of Speaker.
So, however powerful the Speaker is now and whatever he or she can do, it can be changed at any time, so a Speaker has to be careful about what is done lest those powers get yanked away. This is notably different from those Constitutionally immutable powers specifically given to the President and Vice President.
Palin clearly overstated the power of the VP in the senate. Her vision does not square up with recent history or the facts. Defenders are trying to save her by mentally twisting and contorting. It does not work. What she said and even more implied was a was a working relationship with VP in some position of authority. It was wrong.
Correct, but posters here are saying that the VP has no power in the Senate other than to cast tie breaking votes.
Other posters will respond with examples of the VP exercising power in the Senate, and the original posters will say something like “Well, that’s not a constitutional power. It can be taken away by the Senate at any time.”
So, if that is the standard, then the Speaker of the House has no power, since it can be voted away.
Keep in mind, too, that she was talking to third graders. If she gave this answer at a local college, I would be a bit stunned as well.