What is the Job of the Vice President?
It is well established here in the United States that the most powerful person within our government is the president. However, our Constitution also dictates that we are to have a vice president. So, what exactly is the vice president of the United States supposed to do? While the Constitution’s vague language managed to create a strong presidency, it also managed to create a weak second-in-command. In fact, back when the Constitution was being drafted by delegates of the Constitutional Convention, the founding fathers themselves wondered if our country would even need a vice president. In the end, the decision to include the position was most likely done in order to sooth any tensions between states with larger populations and states with smaller populations over the presidential election process.
According to the Constitution, the vice president of the United States has only two jobs.
Firstly, he or she is meant to be the “President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” In simpler terms, the vice president is meant to preside over the Senate but not vote in anything unless the Senate is divided on an issue, in which case the vice president is meant to be the tiebreaker. However, it is rare that the vice president actually presides over the Senate. Instead, the president pro tempore of the Senate usually presides over the chamber. There was logic behind the decision of the vice president presiding over the Senate, though. His or her inclusion in the Senate was meant to ensure that no state lost its equal representation by having one of its two senators serving as president of the chamber.
Second, the vice president is to assume the position of the presidency should the current serving president vacate the office, either because of death, resignation, or impeachment. The rules for this are actually located in the first section of the 25th amendment to the Constitution: “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”
This amendment also includes three more sections, for a total of four sections, in which more rules of succession are delineated.
Section two describes how the president is allowed to nominate a replacement for their vice president, should the vice president leave office before the end of their term, but must gain approval for their choice “by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”
Section three describes how the vice president may assume the role of president should the president be unable to serve. The president must notify Congress through a written declaration and until they write a second declaration that contradicts their first, the vice president is to act as president.
Section four of the 25th amendment has never been used, but it delineates the rules to how the vice president and president’s cabinet can declare to both the Senate and House of Representatives that the president unable to do his or her job. In this, the vice president acts as president until the president is able to do their job, in which they take back their position as president by writing a letter to both chambers. However, if the vice president and the cabinet still deem the president unfit to work, they have four days to challenge the president’s letter and start a long process through which Congress decides whether the president is fit to work.
While the vice president has had little impact on national policy in history, the position has recently become more involved in White House deliberations. Other than being ready to take over the presidency should something happen to the president (in harsher words, being one heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the United States), the main job of the vice president is to help the president get elected. So even though the vice president in stuck in a position of constant near-power, they have an important role in the United States government.
