Look, Regards, Shodan, where did I lie?
He cited John Adams, who tried to run the Senate until the Senate remembered that the only thing the constitution required was that Adams be allowed a tie-breaking vote. After which point Adams sat in the corner and whined because he realized he was truly powerless.
He cited John C. Calhoun, who gave up the Vice Presidency to become a senator three months before the bill he supposedly pushed through was voted on. The catalyst for Calhouns resignation was the issue of nullification by the states. Calhoun wrote an anonymous pamphlet advocating this right, and its authorship was discovered. He resigned the Vice Presidency and became a senator. And the bill he “pushed through” with Henry Clay passed by comfortable margins in both the House and the Senate.
Dawes is almost an example of what he’s looking for, but even Dawes had extremely limited power to “control the debate,” and that mainly through force of personality. Most of what Dawes did was sit and fume in the Senate chambers while senators filibustered, which he had no power to stop. The McNagy-Haugen farm bill was part of a compromise that he helped broker, again through force of personality. (Cite on Dawes.)
So there’s one example in 225 years of a Vice President “get[ting] in there and really mak[ing] a lot of good policy changes.” Of course, the bill was vetoed, but never mind that. That one example is of a Vice President getting in there and making policy changes. As in “a Vice President did that once” and not “there once was a Vice President who.” So yeah, it only took 140 years for a VP to really make a policy change. It doesn’t seem to have happened since, but in that respect I feel as though that really is the job of the Vice President.
Heaven forbid anyone ask Cindy McCain or Michele Obama what the job of the First Lady is: “Well, Timmy, the job of the first lady is to carry the art out of the White House in case of a fire.” Then we’d have a five page thread about whether the real duty of the First Lady is to rescue art in general, or just paintings of Washington.
It is, actually, factually wrong. She said: “[T]hey’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” The Vice President is in charge of the US Senate to some extent, I’ll give her that. But the Vice President cannot get in there with the Senators. The Vice President has no substantive, meaningful effect on the debate, especially since most VPs haven’t bothered to do much of anything there anyway.
What an odd thing to categorically deny. It’s such a vague, colloquial phrase, how can you possibly categorically deny it?
Even stipulating that VPs have had no substantive effect on policymaking–which I think is generous stipulation–you’re confusing what VPs have typically done with what they are allowed to do in that role. The latter question is, as a factual matter, unsettled unless you can point us to a Supreme Court decision explaining the meaning of “presides over.”
He has the Constitutional authority to control what is debated. That is substantive, meaningful, and effective.
Here’s a cite from the Senate’s own website: U.S. Senate: Vice President of the United States (President of the Senate)
Just because the recent VP’s haven’t exercised that authority, doesn’t mean they don’t have it.
Disclaimer: I don’t like Palin.
That said, presiding over a legislative body allows a great deal of power and control, especially to someone skilled in the rules of order. She could always, at least hypothetically, work with Republican lawmakers on creating legislation as well, although nothing she has done or said so far gives me the impression that she’d be very good at that. She might just generate ideas and have others work out the legal specifics.
Still, it is an uninformed opinion to say that there is not power to be had there beyond casting tie-breaking votes. The political realities may later prove otherwise, but the power IS there.
I think you’re misunderstanding my point. Of course the Vice-President must apply the rules of the Senate as written, except if they ever conflicted with the Constitution.. For example, if the Senate modified its rules to preclude the VP from presiding on Fridays, or from casting a tie-breaking vote only a budget bill.
The idea that the Senate can constrain or expand the powers of the chair are not in dispute – but that cannot eviscerate the power of the chair lower than the ordinary meaning of “to preside” – which, in fact, is pretty much where they are right now.
She’s said it at least four times including one of the debates.
There’s a video in the following link with examples of her saying it.
Did you read what you’re citing? I presume you’re referring to this paragraph?
It doesn’t say anything about Constitutional rights to control what is debated. What that paragraph says is that, in the first Senate, the Vice President was given the power, by the Senate, to decide all questions of order. Then they decided that this was a foolish thing to have done and they… wait for it… changed their minds. The Vice President no longer has this power because it’s not part of the Constitution, it’s part of the Senate rules. I’m almost positive that this rule was changed during the Adams Vice Presidency (that is, really quite early in the history of the office).
In the 1920’s, when Dawes was VP, the Vice President had the power to rule on points of order, but those rulings could be appealed by any member of the body. Dawes was proud of himself that none of his decisions had ever been appealed.
The reason that recent Vice Presidents haven’t exercised this authority is exactly because they don’t have it. The Constitution says that the Vice President shall be the President of the Senate. What does “President of the Senate” mean? It means whatever the Senate damn well says it means. And it hasn’t meant what you’re claiming it means for more than 200 years.
The part that seems to be escaping you is that “presiding” is not the same as “being in charge.” It is not an authoritative position, just a ceremonial one.
This is factually false.
First, in our system, the ultimate arbiter of constitutional meaning is the Supreme Court. If they haven’t decided, or provided the means of deciding (as in Youngstown), then you cannot conclusively assert what the Constitution means on an ambiguous matter as a matter of fact.
Second, you really should read the Story cite I posted earlier. It makes pretty plain that changes to the VPs role were made in spite of the generally agreed upon meaning of the Constitution.
Here another link from a VNN article. :[URL=“http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/”]Palin Misstates VP role.
So, since the Senate has, over the years, considerably changed the role of the presiding officer by changing its rules, your points about what Vice Presidents have done in the past WRT their position in the Senate are moot, are they not?
Is the debate on the meaning of the word “preside” in the Constitution?
Who decides what “preside” means, if it came to a push-and-shove? The SCOTUS?
From Bricker’s examples, it looks like there has been pushin-and-shovin in the past, but it never got placed before the SCOTUS…
It’s both.
Look, would you fault someone saying that the Queen is “in charge” of ruling the United Kingdom?
She has almost no true authority; the PM is the head of government. Her actions, although ceremonially designed to “give assent” to acts of Parliament, are practically speaking useless; the Queen doesn’t refuse assent, ever.
But her ceremonial function is to be in charge.
It’s not wrong to describe her that way – although of course I grant you that the description is not nuanced.
As a matter of custom, not constitutional law.
And I’d maintain that “in charge of” is too vague a phrase to categorically deny even as a matter of custom. You can read lots of things into “in charge of” that would violate custom and the current Senate rules, but you can also read lots of things into it that would not (such has being in charge of lobbying Senators to introduce or pass certain legislation).
It depends on what arguments I’m replying to.
If you’re talking about the claim that NEVER ONCE IN RECORDED HISTORY HAS THIS HAPPENED (post #31) then obviously my points are highly responsive.
Richard Parker is probably the most intellectually honest debater active on the SDMB in political threads these days.
Besides me, of course. 
Can you explain the Calhoun connection, then?
Of course. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. Why did the Compromise Tariff need to pass? It was a response to what was known as the Nullification Crisis, with Calhoun’s South Carolina declaring that it need not pay certain federal tariffs – the state legislature passed a resolution saying the tariffs were unconstitutional, led by Calhoun’s efforts. Congress the “Force Bill,” enabling the President to use military power to enforce federal tariffs, and the President sent Navy ships out accordingly. This is basically a Civil-War-Dress-Rehearsal, and it was defused only by the passage of the Compromise Tariff, which (while it was actually passed after Calhoun left the Senate) included most of the demands that Calhoun had insisted upon from the beginning. Indeed, the reason Calhoun left the VP spot was the public unveiling of his persuasive efforts in favor of nullification and his undercutting of the administration.