But Sarah Palin is a real American, a pro-American American and in her short time in the national spotlight, she has captured the hearts of all the true Bush die-hards and learned the Senate rules and traditions better than Lyndon Johnson. She is just that smart. She went to six colleges, dontcha know? She knows six times as much as those of us that only went to one college.
BTW, The Daily Show interviewed the Mayor of Wasillia last night. The Mayor of Wasillia goes to meetings and writes checks. Alas (ka) we didn’t get to see the bordello style office that Palin redecorated.
But the President of the Senate does not do these things, the Majority Leader does them for the Senate. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-14-congress-majority_x.htm Recognizing speakers is a matter of parliamentary procedure: one for, the next against, etc. (usually) if a presiding officer refused to abide by parliamentary rules, there is an appeal process. I seriously doubt that the NY legislature deviates from some form of recognizing opposing speakers. More likely you are thinking that speakers can only speak about matters set on the agenda.
Yes you can, if you are the US Senate Majority Leader. Not the Vice President. Beyond casting tie breaking vote, he cannot do anything not specifically delegated to him by the Rules of the Senate. Opening and closing the sessionand ruling on points of orderare duties granted the President of the Senate by the Rules, and it can be withdrawn by changing the rules. The Vice President has no inherent power to do anything beyond vote in case of a tie.
This brings up an interesting philosophical question–is it worse for a drowning man to clutch at a fifty pound anchor or a hundred pound anchor?
I have it on reliable authority he bursts into flames when exposed to sunlight, and even if he could get around that the prayer they say at the beginning of the session would have the same effect. Probably for the best, really.
Yes, it’s effectively the equal of the Speaker of the House in a parliamentary system, and has just as much actual power.
Personally, I’d be delighted to see her wander into the Senate and start throwing her weight around. The reaction of 100 Senators to that would be one of the things that keeps politics amusing.
Doesn’t anything about politics amuse you? I mean, sheesh, given the hypothetical that McCain and Palin are elected, wouldn’t the Senate’s reaction to Palin marching in with an “I’m in charge here, bucky,” attitude amuse you?
Was that really the best answer she could think of to the question “What does the Vice President do?”?
Leaving aside the issue of whether and in what way “presides over” can be interpreted to mean “in charge of”, it seems to me that this response is completely off target when it comes to conveying (even to a third grader) any real sense of what the Vice President’s job is about.
The real power of the VP job, such as it is if it has any, as other posters have pointed out, is via the executive branch, and that’s the part she should have explained. (Is an eight-year-old supposed to know what “support the President’s agenda” means?)
A sensible (if perhaps too optimistic) answer would have been something like “The Vice President works closely with the President to make decisions in the Executive Branch. They also sometimes meet with leaders of other countries as the President’s representative. They’re kind of like the President’s co-pilot, helping them get the job done.”)
Focusing on the VP’s nominal leadership of the Senate, and suggesting that that’s the primary role in which the VP can “make a lot of good policy changes”, does indeed come across as rather silly and uninformed. I don’t infer from that statement that Palin is literally ignorant of what the VP’s actual role is (although to be fair, she was the first one to attribute that ignorance to herself), but she certainly did a piss-poor job of explaining it.
You know, you’d think you’d do a little bit of research before making such a sweeping declaration.
Not once, huh?
Genius, up until the 1960s, it was more likely than not that the VP would preside on the majority of days the Senate was in session. John Adams was known for his particularly activist use of the role. Remember the Nullification Crisis and Calhoun’s use of the presidency of the senate to push through Clay’s Compromise Tariff of 1833? How about Dawes and the McNary-Haugen farm relief bill?
Whatever Bricker, you’re clearly wrong here. The VP has never used his position to exercise power except for the tie-breaking vote. The VP power to “preside” over the Senate has never been used to change an outcome of any issue. The power has not been exercised in that sense. You were right in that it would have been the route for Bush to go for the “nuclear” option but he didn’t do it because it’s never been done before. You can argue that it might be attempted, but it’s far from a guaranteed right. The definition of “presiding” would have to be determined. The current interpretation of that definition according to 200 years of Senate tradition imply that the VP has little power in “presiding”
For Palin to pretend that she would be able to buck 200 years of tradition is ridiculous, and you can insult me all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about.
And quit acting like the VP casting a tie-breaker is some kind of way to win the argument. She said that she’d be the leader of the Senate. This is only true in a useless ceremonial sense.
Hey liberal doper douchebags, with all of the stuff to already not like about Palin, why are you stretching so much for even more stuff? Jesus christ!
Also, I’m sure when third graders ask you questions you give them full and complete answers that would get full credit in a college course on the subject.
To preside means to sit as chair, and to act in accordance with the rules for the body – which, as has been noted, the Senate, not the Vice President acting unilaterally, has the right to adopt. While it might be reasonable to assume that a presiding officer will preside in accordance with traditional standards of parliamentary procedure, that assumption is not spelled out in the Constitution. At most it might be considered, uh, what do you call it?, oh yeah, an emanation or a penumbra.
And, having rattled Bricker’s chain in the previous post, let me supplement his point in #52 by asking if people know where Harry Truman was when he became President?
Was that really the best answer she could think of to the question “What does the Vice President do?”?