The strange job of the American vice president
It’s often said that the most powerful person in the world is the president of the United States. So is the vice president the second-most-powerful person in the world? Hardly.
Go back to the beginning. The vice presidency was almost an afterthought in the creation of America’s Constitution. There was a constitutional convention between May and September of the year 1787; every state at the time was represented.
Only in September, the last month, did the delegates deal with the vice presidency. There was a little bit of debate, in which they worried about the VP getting bored. They gave the vice president a few unimportant duties and, after a short discussion, moved on to other topics. The vice presidency was clearly not a priority.
In the original Constitution, the vice presidency went to the candidate with the second-most votes in the presidential election—in other words , the loser in a two-man race became the vice president.
That’s not how it is today; the constitution was amended in 1804. Today , the parties nominate a ticket: a president and a vice president are a package deal. They run and serve together. The loser of an election, thankfully, has no role in the government.
But the responsibilities of the office are the same today as they were in the beginning. The vice president is the ceremonial leader of the Senate, the upper house of the legislature. And in the case of a tie vote in the Senate, the vice president breaks the tie. With only 100 members, ties happen with some regularity. And of course, if a president dies or cannot serve, the vice president assumes the presidency.
That’s not a lot, but it is important. Forty-five men have taken the oath of office to be president; eight have died during their terms—a worrying rate of 18 percent. The current officeholder is 81.
For that reason, many presidents include the vice president in critical decisions and moments. They call upon their number-twos to give advice and to speak on behalf of the administration. The vice president often takes charge of initiatives or advises the president on specific issues. A good vice president always supports the president, without ever grabbing the spotlight for himself or herself.
There are a lot of ribbon cuttings, speeches, visits to schools and businesses, foreign trips, and such.
Some vice presidents have made a larger impact than others. Joe Biden, as vice president to Barack Obama, helped negotiate with the legislature, where he had served for decades. Dick Cheney, vice president to George W. Bush, handled large parts of the security and foreign policy portfolio in the years after September 11 .
Not everyone wielded power or influence as vice president. Dan Quayle is primarily remembered for publicly misspelling the word “potato” during a visit to a school. Aaron Burr, the third-ever vice president, shot and killed a former Treasury Secretary in a duel. John Nance Garner was frustrated at how little influence he had. He supposedly said the vice presidency wasn’t worth “a bucket of warm spit.”
Often , the news media refers to the president as the veep’s “boss.” For example, “Joe Biden was a loyal vice president to his boss, Barack Obama.” Or, “Will Kamala Harris disagree with her boss on any major issues?”
But this is incorrect. The vice president doesn’t have a “boss.” Although the presidential nominee picks the vice president before the election, after the election, they are both constitutionally elected officers. They have vastly different powers, but one cannot fire the other.
It’s hard for vice presidents to later run for the presidency. Vice presidents don’t have much power, but they get all the blame if things aren’t going well. In their September 2024 debate, Donald Trump pointedly asked why Vice President Kamala Harris hadn’t done anything to solve inflation or illegal immigration in the three-and-a-half years she’d been in office.
Harris did her best to skirt the issue and assert herself as an individual without repudiating the administration she serves in. Still, that was Trump’s strongest point in their one debate.
How do presidential candidates pick their running mates, their vice-presidential candidates? I’d like to believe they pick the ones that would make the best president, if needed; or, that they pick running mates that can balance out the main candidate’s weaknesses on policy issues and contribute to the administration.
There is some of that. But many times, the running mate is chosen with the election (and not the future) in mind. Candidates look at voter demographics and determine where they’re relatively weak. Then, they select a running mate who is likely to appeal to that type of voter.
The race in 2024 illustrates this. Kamala Harris was a prosecutor and Senator from California; she picked a schoolteacher and former governor from the middle of the country. He balances out her appeal. Donald Trump is 78; his running mate is 40. Trump is from a rich New York family; Vance is the author of a memoir about growing up poor in the mountains. There’s balance.
It’s also important for running mates not to have too many skeletons in their closets—embarrassing things from their pasts that would hurt the combined ticket. Days after Trump picked JD Vance, the world was treated to old podcast recordings of Vance saying people without children shouldn’t have much influence on the future of the country. Oops.
Jeff’s take
I would love to be the vice president. It seems like a great job.
First of all, the house is better. The vice president has an official residence, which is not a terrorist target or a tourist attraction. The White House is an office building, a conference center, a museum, and an amusement park all in one. The vice president gets a nice house where everyone leaves him or her alone.
And you get to travel the country, travel the world, show up, smile, say nice, neutral, supportive, inoffensive things, and let the president deal with all the hard decisions. The vice president makes about $235,000 per year and can write books and give speeches in retirement. Not a bad life!
Great stories make learning English fun