Vice President of the United States


Vice President of the United States


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Acting Vice President Kamala Harris since January 20, 2021

Official seat	Number One Observatory Circle (official seat and residence) Eisenhower Executive Office Building (workplace)
Term of office	4 years (no term limit)
Creation of the office	March 4, 1789
Last choice	3rd November 2020
Next choice	November 5, 2024
salutation	The Honorable (formal)
	male incumbent: Mr. Vice President (informal) Mr. President (in his role as Senate President)
	female incumbent: Madam Vice President (informal) Madam President (in her role as Senate President)
Deputy of	US President
Deputy in the Senate	President pro tempore of the Senate

Website	whitehouse.gov Vice President

The Vice President of the United States is the representative of the US president and owner of the second-highest office in the United States of America . The Vice-President is the first person who succeeds the President in the event of the President's death, resignation or impeachment , and also temporarily in the event of the President's temporary incapacity. At the same time, the Vice President is also President of the Senate and can cast the decisive vote there in the event of a stalemate. He also performs ceremonial tasks.

Initially perceived as a largely insignificant office and mostly without any influence on the work of the government, the Vice President has regularly attended cabinet meetings since 1933 and has also had an office in the White House since 1961 . Today he is usually one of the most important advisors to the President.

There have been 49 Vice Presidents so far . The incumbent has been the Democrat Kamala Harris since January 20, 2021 as the first woman in this position. She is also the first African-American and the first Asian-American person to hold this position.

Scope of office

In addition to the role of deputy and possible successor to the president, the constitution provides the vice-president with an independent task: he is president of the Senate. As such, he also chairs the joint session of Congress at which the results of the presidential election are counted.

The constitution does not clearly assign the office to the executive or legislative branches . As long as the vice president does not advance to the presidency, the constitution only assigns him the role of senate president and thus legislative powers. Since the president was increasingly involved in government work in the 20th century and barely presides over the Senate, he has in fact been a member of the executive board, but has no formal powers there, but can only act on behalf of the president. In science, therefore, it is controversial whether the office should be assigned to the legislature, the executive, or both.

Representation and succession of the President

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as President two hours after his predecessor, John F. Kennedy , was assassinated. To the right of Johnson on board the presidential plane is Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis .

The original version of the United States Constitution stipulated that the Vice President would exercise the rights and duties of the President for the rest of the current term of office if the President dies, resigns or is removed from office. It was unclear, however, whether this exercise of office is provisional or the vice-president becomes president. In the first such case in 1841, John Tyler set the precedent that he saw himself as president and rejected the designation acting president (acting president). He took the oath of office two days after the president's death. Two months later, Congress passed a resolution supporting the move. Since then, this practice has been in effect, which was only brought into law in 1967 with the 25th amendment to the constitution . A total of eight other Vice Presidents have been promoted to the presidency after John Tyler in 1841. Four of them were confirmed by elections for the presidency after the end of the current term of office.

The vice-presidents who have been promoted to the office of president are:

John Tyler became president in 1841 after just 31 days in office. President William Henry Harrison caught a severe cold three weeks after inauguration and died shortly afterwards of pneumonia . However, Tyler was not nominated in the following election in 1844 and resigned after the end of the term in 1845.
Millard Fillmore was in 1850, nine years later, the second vice president to rise to the highest office in the state. President Zachary Taylor , like Harrison, fell ill after a public event and died shortly afterwards. Fillmore was the last president of the Whig Party . For the next presidential election in 1852 he could not secure the nomination of his party and thus resigned in 1853. As a candidate for the American Party , he was only third in the 1856 election .
Andrew Johnson became Abraham Lincoln's second vice president in 1865 . When he was murdered just over a month later , Johnson took over the presidency. He was the first president to survive impeachment proceedings that only narrowly failed. He was not nominated for re-election by the Democrats and therefore left the White House in 1869.
Chester A. Arthur moved up in 1881 when President James A. Garfield was shot by a mentally ill person and succumbed to his injuries eleven weeks later. Arthur was unable to assert himself as a presidential candidate within the party in the following election in 1884 and therefore left office in 1885.
Theodore Roosevelt also became president in 1901 as a result of an assassination attempt. William McKinley was murdered by an anarchist six months into his second term. At 42, Roosevelt is still the youngest president to take office. As the first vice-president to stand up , he succeeded in being nominated by his party in 1904 and to secure re-election. In 1908 he renounced another candidacy, but applied again in vain in 1912 .
Calvin Coolidge became president in 1923 after the death of Warren G. Harding due to illness . He was re- elected by a clear margin in 1924 . In 1928 it could not be erected again.

Harry S. Truman had been Vice President for just under three months in 1945 when Franklin D. Roosevelt died at the beginning of his fourth term, making Truman president. In 1948 he was re-elected. He was the last president not affected by the term limit of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution . In 1952 he renounced another candidacy after he had lost the first internal party primary.

Lyndon B. Johnson became president in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy . In the 1964 election he was re-elected with the largest majority to date. In 1968 he could have run again because he had completed less than two years of the tenure of his predecessor, but he waived.

Gerald Ford , who himself was the first to become vice-president through the resignation of Spiro Agnew in 1973 through the 25th amendment to the constitution , finally came to the office of president in 1974 through the resignation of Richard Nixon . However, re-election in 1976 failed.

The 25th Amendment also laid down a procedure for incapacity of the President. This can be determined by the President himself or by the Vice-President with the approval of the Cabinet. In that case, the vice-president becomes acting president. This has happened three times since the Amendment to the Constitution came into force in 1967: in 1985, George Bush Sr., and in 2002 and 2007, Dick Cheney served as Executive President for a few hours. The occasion was always an operation by the president.

President of the Senate

The Vice President chairs the US Senate , but is not a member of the Senate. While this role was still exercised by many incumbents themselves in the 19th century, the vice-presidents of the 20th century increasingly concentrated on executive duties. This is why the President generally leads the meetings pro tempore today . This is a constitutional deputy of the chairman, who is chosen by the senators, usually the senior senator of the majority party. According to the Senate's rules of procedure, the Vice President also has no right to speak.

However, if there is a tie in the Senate, his office is important, as he can then cast one vote to lift the stalemate. This can be of great importance for the president and his party when the majority is tight. Most Vice Presidents were allowed to use their vote at least once to bring about a decision. In 2001 there was a 50:50 stalemate between the parties in the Senate. The then Vice President Dick Cheney was allowed to cast his vote a total of eight times during his tenure. The former Vice President Joe Biden , on the other hand, was not allowed to give a single such vote, like 11 other Vice Presidents before him. Only seven Vice Presidents reached more than eight decisions. The record holder is John C. Calhoun with a total of 31 decisive votes. Since the members of the cabinet must be confirmed by the Senate, it can also happen that the Vice President is allowed to cast a casting vote in order to promote the person nominated by his President to office. This has only happened once so far, when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was elected to office with the vote of Vice President Mike Pence in February 2017 .

If a new law is passed, the Vice President, as Senate Chairman, also countersigns the document, as does the Speaker of the House of Representatives , before the President signs the law gazette at the end for its validity.

One task that falls to the Vice President in his role as Senate President is to preside over an impeachment procedure for public officials at the federal level. However, the Supreme Federal Judge presides over impeachment proceedings against the President . The Constitution does not specify who will sit in impeachment proceedings against the Vice-President. Since such a case has never occurred, this has never been determined by a corresponding practice.

Counting of votes in the presidential election

The presidential election is only an indirect election, with each state designating its electorate for the electoral college. However, this body never meets. Instead, the delegations of each state meet in the respective state capital and vote there. The result is transmitted to Washington, where Congress then checks and counts the votes received in a joint session of the two chambers. This meeting is chaired by the (still incumbent) Vice-President.

In practice, these sessions are simply reading out the results that have already been established for a long time. There are also defined decision-making processes in the case of objections, so that the Vice President only has ceremonial tasks here. Since vice-presidents have tried several times to be elected president, it can happen that the vice-president announces his own election victory or that of his opponent.

Other tasks

The office of Vice President also gives rise to further duties and rights. He is also a member of the United States National Security Council and a board member of the Smithsonian Institution .

Importance of the office

Number One Observatory Circle , official residence of the Vice President

Office of the Vice President in the White House in 2012 (here with then Vice President Joe Biden , right, and Barack Obama )

The first vice president, John Adams , described the office as "the most meaningless man has ever devised." In fact, the office was of little importance in everyday political life for a long time, so that the incumbents only received more attention when they rose to the office of president. With a few exceptions, this remained so until the 20th century.

There is a saying alluding to the possible succession of a deceased president: "The vice president is only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office ". The political scientist Birgit Oldopp calls the role of the Vice President "ungrateful". It depends on the extent to which the president trusts the vice-president and includes him in political life. Walter Mondale (Vice President under Jimmy Carter ) and Al Gore (under Bill Clinton ), for example, were conceded considerable political influence by their respective presidents.

The vice-president does not belong to the cabinet and did not attend its meetings until 1919. Woodrow Wilson first broke with this tradition when he asked Vice President Thomas Riley Marshall to represent him in cabinet meetings during the negotiations on the Treaty of Versailles . Until 1933, this was handled differently depending on the president. From then on, Franklin D. Roosevelt finally made the vice-president's attendance at cabinet meetings the rule, something all presidents have continued since then. Originally, the Vice President did not have an office in the White House either . Lyndon B. Johnson was given an office there for the first time in 1961, which has since been retained for all vice presidents. Overall, the importance of the office has grown in recent decades, but it also depends on how the respective office holder exercises it. So was Dan Quayle as a weak vice-president, Dick Cheney , however, to be extremely strong.

Last but not least, vice-presidents are entrusted with representative tasks, including trips abroad. It is true that the Vice President is sent to the funerals of secondary heads of state. In public appearances by the Vice President, the presidential salute is the melody or the song Hail, Columbia, after four ruffles and flourishes (drum rolls and fanfares) . The Vice President's residence has been the Number One Observatory Circle building in Washington, DC , since 1974

choice

procedure

According to today's procedure, nominations are made to the voter, each of which contains candidates for president and vice-president. So the combination of both is always chosen. A vice presidential candidate is called the running mate of the presidential candidate. The electoral college votes on both posts at the same time, but they are essentially free to choose. However, under the 12th Amendment , they must vote for at least one candidate who is not from their own state . The president and vice president are therefore usually not from the same state in order not to lose votes from that state. Since the electors are sent by the parties and different states have laws to punish electors who vote deviatingly, the respective election proposal is usually voted in unity.

The original procedure was such that the electoral college only votes on the president and the runner-up becomes vice-president. Each elector had two votes. In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives should decide who receives which office. This carried the risk that the president and vice president might belong to opposing political camps. If a party wanted to fill both offices, it had to nominate two candidates and try to get one of the two candidates to receive at least one more vote. This led to a split between two parties in the 1796 election and a crisis in the 1800 election , as the presidential candidate and his own candidate for the vice presidency were tied and the House of Representatives could not agree on one. That is why the 12th Amendment to the Constitution introduced today's rule as early as the 1804 election .

This also specifies what to do if the electoral college has not found a majority for a candidate. In this case, the Senate selects the vice-president from the two candidates who have received the most votes in the electoral college. Two thirds of the senators must attend and the candidate must receive the votes of at least half of the members of the Senate. With the current composition, 67 senators would have to participate and at least 51 senators would have to vote for the candidate. The District of Columbia has no representation in this process, as the 23rd Amendment allows it only electors to the electoral college, but no votes in the Senate.

requirements

Every candidate for the vice presidency must also be eligible for president. Must be a native of the United States and at least 35 years of age. They must also have resided in the United States for at least 14 years.

There are also three restrictions that prohibit candidacy and are more of a theoretical nature:

According to the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution , no one may be elected President more than twice. If a Vice President moves up more than two years before the end of the term of office, he may only be re-elected once. If a president has exhausted these limits, he is no longer allowed to run for president, and since a vice-presidential candidate must also be eligible for president, a candidacy for vice-president is then also excluded.
When a public official is removed from office at the federal level, the Senate can determine that the person concerned is also excluded from such offices in the future. This also blocks the way to the vice presidency.
Under the 14th Amendment , no vice president who was involved in a rebellion against the United States is allowed to be a vice president. This can be repealed with a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Congress. The regulation was originally aimed at the participants in the Civil War on the side of the southern states, who should no longer have a leading role in government. However, these were later largely rehabilitated. Since no corresponding rebellion has arisen, the provision has only theoretical relevance for today's presidential elections.

nomination

President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush at the Republican Nomination Party in August 1984

The presidential candidate proposes his vice- presidential candidate at the nomination party conference. The party congress confirms this by election. This practice has only been in practice since 1940 , when Franklin D. Roosevelt reserved the right to choose the vice-presidential candidate himself. Before that, the vice-president was chosen by the parties. In 1956, Adlai Stevenson was the last presidential candidate to date to leave the nomination to the party congress.

In practice, the vice presidential candidate is often a former internal party rival of the presidential candidate. This should involve his followers. In addition, there are advantages in choosing if the running mate has qualities that the presidential candidate lacks. A more left-wing candidate may choose a right-wing running mate or vice versa, an older one a younger one, etc. An important point in the selection is often the origin. If the vice-presidential candidate is popular in his or her country of birth or residence, this can increase the chances of voting. A case in point is the 1960 election when John F. Kennedy, a native of the liberal north, nominated Texan Lyndon B. Johnson to score among the conservative Democrats in the south. In fact, the team managed to secure a majority of the Texan votes and thus the electorate from this state by a narrow margin.

The vice-presidency of John C. Calhoun (1825–1832) was a historical curiosity . In the presidential election in 1824 , he had originally run himself as a candidate. But then he became vice-presidential candidate for two presidential candidates: Both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson had nominated him as a "running mate". At that time, four presidential candidates received electoral votes, but none received a sufficient majority in the electoral college . Calhoun, on the other hand, received almost 70% of the electoral vote in the college and therefore became vice-president. The House of Representatives eventually named Adams President, to the indignation of Jackson, who had won more electoral votes than Adams. In the following election in 1828, Jackson and Calhoun ran as a team, who actually served as President and Vice President after the election victory. In 1832, however, for his successful re-election, Jackson chose another running mate , Martin van Buren, who was himself elected president in 1836. Calhoun became a senator and eventually foreign minister. Most of the vice-presidential candidates were formerly senators or governors, less often only members of the House of Representatives, ambassadors or members of the government.

Later candidacy for the presidency

Some vice-presidents have tried to succeed their president by running their own presidential nomination after their departure:

So far, only four Vice-Presidents have become President in this way directly afterwards: John Adams , Thomas Jefferson , Martin Van Buren and George Bush .
Two other vice-presidents were later elected president: Richard Nixon , who was vice-president from 1953 to 1961, lost in the 1960 election , but succeeded in a new attempt in the 1968 election . In that election he defeated the incumbent Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey in a narrow outcome. Joe Biden was Barack Obama's vice president from 2009 to 2017 , but did not run for the presidency until four years after his term ended , which he won.

More recently, John Nance Garner was a vice president (during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first two terms ) who wanted to become president. He tried to be nominated as a Democratic candidate in 1940 when he rejected a third Roosevelt candidacy. However, Roosevelt secured the nomination and remained president, while Henry A. Wallace became the new vice president. Vice President Al Gore was narrowly defeated in the 2000 election . He was able to get the most votes, but not the majority of the electoral college.

Numerous vice-presidents held other political offices or ran for these after their vice-presidency. A particularly large number of them became senators again, while others took up a position in the cabinet or became governors of a state. Andrew Johnson was even elected a Senator after serving as Vice President and President.

Terms of office

The number of terms of office is not limited. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution only limits the terms of office of the President, but not those of the Vice-President. Theoretically, a Vice President can serve for any length of time and under different presidents. In practice, no vice president has served more than two terms; only George Clinton and John C. Calhoun served under two different presidents, but for only one term each. On the contrary, to date (2021) there have been 49 Vice-Presidents, while there have only been 46 Presidents.

In the past, presidents ran for re-election with another vice-presidential candidate. For example, between Daniel D. Tompkins (1817–1825) and Thomas Riley Marshall (1913–1921) there was not a single vice president who served two terms (John C. Calhoun resigned in 1832 a little before the end of his second term). Replacing a vice president has now become uncommon. This last happened with Franklin D. Roosevelt , who had three different vice-presidents in his four terms from 1933 to 1945. In 1975 Nelson Rockefeller decided against running for a second term, which is why Gerald Ford ran in the 1976 election with Bob Dole as a vice-presidential candidate. But he was defeated by Jimmy Carter .

Termination of office and replacement

Gerald Ford (left) and Nelson Rockefeller in the Oval Office (1975)

The term of office of the Vice President ends at the same time as that of the President, i.e. H. on January 20 after a presidential election at 12 noon local time. The office has been vacant for various periods of time in the history of the United States . In contrast to the office of President (see Succession to the President of the United States ), there is no mechanism that automatically appoints a successor or at least temporarily holds the office. This can result in temporary vacancies.

This case can occur in the following scenarios:

Loss of president due to death, resignation or impeachment. In this case, the vice-president becomes the president, so that there is initially no longer a vice-president. This has happened nine times so far. Originally, it was not clearly regulated whether the Vice President only exercises official duties or becomes President himself. The first vice president in such a situation, John Tyler , declared himself president in 1841, establishing a practice that was made law in 1967 with the 25th Amendment to the Constitution .
Death of the Vice President. This has happened seven times so far, the last time in 1912 when James S. Sherman died .
Resignation of the Vice President. So far, only two incumbents have resigned: John C. Calhoun resigned in late 1832 a few months before the end of his term because of differences with President Jackson and moved to the Senate. Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 because of a bribery and tax evasion affair.
Impeachment of the Vice President. Like the President and other office holders at the federal level, the House of Representatives can apply for removal from office, which the Senate then decides on. To date, no such proceeding has been brought against a Vice-President. The vice-president cannot be removed from office by the president.
If no new incumbent has been legally elected by the regular end of office of a Vice President. This has not happened before.

Initially, a vacancy in the vice-presidency could only be filled with the next presidential election, which in certain cases was not until almost 4 years later. It was not until 1967 that the 25th Amendment made it possible to appoint a new Vice President. If a vice president dies or resigns, the president appoints a successor. However, this appointment must be confirmed by Congress (House of Representatives and Senate).

In 1973 it happened that Nixon's Vice President Agnew resigned. Nixon named Gerald Ford as the new vice president. Then Nixon resigned himself in 1974, so that Ford moved up to the presidency. President Ford named Nelson Rockefeller vice president. Ford and Rockefeller were the only vice presidents who came into office without popular vote. Ford was accordingly the only president who was neither elected as such nor as vice-president by the citizens. He was also not re-elected in 1976; Rockefeller was no longer even a candidate in that election.

oath

Four Vice-Presidents in one picture: (from left) Lyndon B. Johnson , Richard Nixon , Spiro Agnew at his swearing-in, behind him the outgoing Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey (January 20, 1969). Johnson and Nixon were also presidents.

Unlike for the president, the constitution does not provide a special oath for the office of vice-president. Various oaths have been used since 1789; the current form, which is also spoken by senators , representatives and other government officials, has been in use since 1884:

“I do solemnly swear [or affirm] that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God. "

“I solemnly swear [or pledge] that I will uphold the United States Constitution and defend it against all enemies, outside and inside; that I will follow her in good faith and loyalty; that I undertake this duty voluntarily, without any secret reservation or the intention to evade it, and that I will perform well and faithfully the duties of the office which I take up; so help me God. "

Authoritative Articles of the Constitution

Official and domicile

In contrast to the president, the vice-president was not assigned an office or residence for a long time. When the Capitol was expanded in the 1850s, a separate room was set up for the Vice President, which was used from 1859. John C. Breckinridge was the first Vice President to use this room. This room remained the only office room reserved for the Vice President until 1909 when the Russell Senate Office Building opened. Today the Vice President has an office in the West Wing of the White House near the President's office. He also has an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building , where his staff also have their offices.

Vice-presidents originally used their own houses or hotels as residences. There have been attempts to give him his own residence since at least 1923, when Senator John B. Henderson's wife put a newly built house up for sale as an official residence, but it was unsuccessful. Over the following decades, security requirements became a problem, as the private apartments of the respective vice presidents had to be provided with security measures at high cost. In 1966, Congress promised $ 750,000 for the construction of a three-story building on the site of the United States Naval Observatory , but this was put on hold shortly afterwards due to the poor financial situation. Ultimately, in 1974 the Number One Observatory Circle building was designated as the “official temporary residence” for the Vice President. However, it took another three years for a vice president to live there. Gerald Ford rose to be president before he could move in, and Nelson Rockefeller only used it for events but stayed in his own house. Walter Mondale was the first Vice President to live there in 1977. Like the White House, Number One Observatory Circle has received various extensions. George HW Bush added a running track and Dan Quayle added a pool.

literature

Jules Witcover: The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power. Smithsonian Books, Washington, D. C. 2014, ISBN 978-1-5883-4471-7 .
Birgit Oldopp: The US political system. An introduction , 2nd edition, Springer VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-531-19515-5 .
Carole Chandler Waldrup: Vice Presidents. Biographies of the 45 Men Who Have Held the Second Highest Office in the United States. Reprinted edition. McFarland & Company Inc., Jefferson NC, et al. 2006, ISBN 0-7864-2611-X .
L. Edward Purcell (Ed.): Vice Presidents. A Biographical Dictionary. 3rd edition. Facts on File, New York NY 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5740-0 .
Vance Kincade: Heirs Apparent: Solving the Vice Presidential Dilemma. Praeger, Westport 2000, ISBN 978-0-275-96866-3 .