It is a common view, true or not, that Cheney is the real top gun currently in the Executive Branch. But what are his formal powers, while there is a functioning POTUS in town? Can he write “Executive Orders”? Pardon criminals? Formally, I imagine, the VP could be a hands-off job, barring briefings et al., if one so chooses.
The formal powers of the VP are:
- Be President of the Senate.
1a. But only vote if there’s a tie. - Err, that’s it.
The VP can not issue executive orders or pardons or anything like that.
That said, it is common for Presidents to imbue their VPs with a lot of informal power as a matter of simple common management sense. For example, Clinton had Gore head up a lot of the administration’s science, environment and space initiatives while he focused on other stuff. While the people involved technically reported to the President, he said, “I’m putting Al in charge, so do whatever he says,” and they did.
Isn’t the Vice President responsible for maintaining the Space Time Continuum?
He also can provide nominations for the various national Service Academies.
While breaking ties in the Senate and waiting for the President to die are about the only Constitutional duites of the Veep, there are additional responsibilities and roles that have been outlined in legislation. A couple that comes to mind are that he is one of the statutorily-mandated members of the National Security Council, and automatically serves on the board of the Smithsonian.
I’ve always thought that being VP is a really easy job. It sounds really important, but you don’t have to do that much. I’d much rather be VP than president.
The vice presidency is:
[ul]
[li]the spare tire on the automobile of government.[/li][li]a no man’s land somewhere between the legislative and the executive branch.[/li][li]not worth a bucket of warm spit.[/li][/ul]
All attributed to John Nance Garner, FDR’s VP, who felt that it was a step down from his position as Speaker of the House. He agreed to it because he thought that if he didn’t join FDR on the ticket when asked to, the Democrats would lose the election and he wouldn’t be Speaker anyway.
I should have said that Garner’s fears were that if he did not appear on the ticket FDR’s coattails would not be long enough to assure a Democratic majority in the House even if he won.
The Vice President is also a statutory member of the National Security Council. He (or, someday, she) will generally do as much or as little as the President wishes. Cheney’s reach and influence are simply unprecedented, although Mondale and Gore both were much more involved in the work of their respective administrations than just about any other VPs up to that time.
And the Garner quotation was originally “pitcher of warm piss.”
Sorry, flurb, I missed your note about the Veep’s NSC duties.
Tom Lehrer recounts the story of how LBJ was trying to figure out what dignitary to send to a foreign head of state’s funeral. Someone suggested he send Hubert and he replied, “Hubert who?”
Being President of the Senate and breaking tie votes there were the only Constitutional duties of the V.P. prior to the 25th Amendment. Since February 10, 1967, however, he has had the power and duty of being Acting President when the President is unable to discharge the duties of his office.
Tyler’s critics to the contrary, we have had one Acting President, and that for only a part of a day: George Bush pére, who was formally empowered under Section 3 by President Reagan prior to his having surgery. (It’s my understanding that they formally did that, not so much to equip V.P. Bush with the powers he would have been able to exercise under Section 4 anyway, but to set a precedent for future Presidential incapacitations, having in mind the problems under the Garfield and Wilson presidencies. Section 4, of course, has never been put into use.)
Let me just add some quotes from here :
“[The Vice Presidency] is the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” - John Adams, 1st Vice President
“Whether they should or not, [presidential candidates] will not, in the final analysis, choose their vice presidential candidate to succeed them. They will choose them to help them succeed.” - James G. O’ Hara
“The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.” - John Nance Garner
“If you give me a week, I might think of one.” - Dwight Eisenhower, in response to a reporters question about a major policy contributed by then vice president Richard Nixon.
“A little over a week ago, I took a rather unusual step for a vice president…I said something.” - Spiro T. Agnew
“I am not in a leadership position. I am supporting the President. He can exert the leadership and I can support him.” - Nelson Rockefeller
“The second office of this government is honorable and easy, the first is but a splendid misery.” - Thomas Jefferson
“It just is not possible in politics for a vice president to ‘chart out his own course.’” - Richard Nixon
“Look at all the Vice Presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.”
- Harry S. Truman
“What this country needs is a good five cent cigar.” - Thomas Marshall
“I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president.”- Theodore Roosevelt
“This is a hell of a job. I can only do two things: one is to sit up here and listen to you birds talk…The other is to look at newspapers every morning to see how the president’s health is.” - Charles Dawes, speaking to Alben Barkley
" Genius enough to have made him immortal, and unschooled passion enough to have made him infamous".
- Woodrow Wilson, commenting about Aaron Burr
“If the tide of defamation and abuse shall turn and my administration come to be praised, future vice presidents who may succeed to the presidency may feel some slight encouragement to pursue an independent course.” - John Tyler
“I should hate to think that the Senate was as tired of me at the beginning of my service as I am of the Senate at the end.”- Charles G. Dawes
“Keep your mouth shut, your head down, and don’t act like you want it.” - Jack Kemp, TIME, 5/15/2000
“Vice president – it has such a nice ring to it!”- Geraldine Ferraro, 1984
“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.” - Lloyd Bentsen, to Dan Quayle, in 1988 Vice Presidential Debate
“I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead.” - Daniel Webster, on not accepting the Vice Presidency
“The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one.”- Hubert Humphrey
I cannot attest to the validity of these quotes (I have heard quite a few of them in the past though).
- Peter Wiggen
Ugg. And of course after posting that monstrosity, only these quotes really are applicable:
I have to stand up for poor V.P. Marshall, who is unjustly maligned for having said this quote (which is authentic.
Marshall was actually noted at the time for having a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humor. His famous cigar quote was a quote from 19th century humorist Abe Martin, and the circumstances were that he was presiding over the Senate when a rather pompous Senator was reaching the peroration of a pontificatory speech with the line “What this country needs…” [pause for dramatic effect]. Marshall turned to a clerk seated near the President of the Senate’s chair, and sotto voce finished the remark: “What this country needs is a good five cent cigar.” The story was picked up by the press and run with, but nobody realizes that he was lampooning a windbag senator in saying it.
Regarding the Vice Presidency, he was philosophical, talking about "…a woman with two sons. One ran away and went to sea, the other was elected Vice President of the United States. Neither one was ever heard of again”.
The Vice President is a primary American representative for meeting with foreign leaders. But only the dead ones.
Actually, George W. Bush invoked Section 3 to transfer power to Dick Cheney on June 29, 2002, while Bush underwent a colonoscopy. Article and text of letter here.
Whatever his powers are, they don’t include fashion sense and respect .
Fixed link:
Whatever his powers are, they don’t include fashion sense and respect
Another expert view: “The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do every morning is get up and say, ‘How’s the President?’” – Will Rogers
Funny to realize that *both * incidents of us having an Acting President were because the President was having problems with his colon. John Nance Garner would’ve had something to say about that…