During the current presidential election, the importance of the two vice presidential nominees will be a topic of discussion throughout the campaign season. But what is the actual role played by a vice president in the modern political era?
The vice president has several unique constitutional roles in the federal government, in addition to their primary role of serving as president temporarily or for the remainder of a presidential term when there is a vacancy in office, or an inability or disability on the president’s part. These additional roles have been spelled out in the Constitution over time and differ in part from the Founder’s original vision.
The Creation of the Role of Vice President
During the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, there was a debate about the role of the vice president in the new system of federal government. There was no such office under the Articles of Confederation, and the Founders saw a need for a vice president for several reasons. Historian Edward Larson, in a 2017 law review article, recapped the events in Philadelphia. As part of the compromise that created the Electoral College, the Committee of Eleven decided that electors would cast two votes, and the top vote-getter became president. “In this way, the Vice Presidency was created to serve an electoral rather than a government purpose,” Larson explained, since the second-place finisher would assume the office of the vice president.
The committee was then faced with a second question: what was the vice president’s job? First, the committee decided that the vice president should serve in place of the president when the office became vacant during a term. Larson noted that the designation as vice president gave the titleholder nothing to do unless there was a presidential vacancy. The committee then recommended that the vice president serve as the Senate’s presiding officer and could break a tie vote in the chamber.
Objections were raised by several delegates, including Elbridge Gerry (pictured, left). “We might as well put the President himself at the head of the Legislature. The close intimacy that must subsist between the President [and V]ice-[P]resident makes it absolutely improper,” James Madison noted in his record of Gerry’s comments. (In March 1813, Elbridge Gerry became the fifth Vice President of the United States.)
The Constitution as ratified on June 21, 1788 included the committee’s plans for the vice president. Article II, Section 1 spelled out that “in Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President.” Congress could also declare by law when a vice president had a disability.
Article I, Section 3 established the vice president’s role in Congress: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.”
A presiding officer of the Senate, the vice president initially was given another role. The vice president along with the speaker of the house officially signed or attested to bills sent to the president for signature. That role would be expanded with the ratification of the 12th Amendment, which was passed after the election of 1800 led to the nation’s first constitutional crisis under the original presidential election system set out in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3. Each elector cast two electoral votes, with no distinction made between electoral votes for president and electoral votes for vice president.
During the 1800 presidential election, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of Electoral College votes; the House of Representatives voted to break the tie, choosing Jefferson. The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, fixed the original Article II process by allowing for distinct ballots for the election of the president and vice president. It also required states to send their certified results to “the President of the Senate [and] the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.”
The Modern Role of the Vice President
During the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century, vice presidents could, if they wished, take part in Senate proceedings in a rulemaking capacity as the presiding officer. And on rare occasions, a vice president could make a long-term consequential decision. In April 1841, Vice President John Tyler was summoned to Washington after the death of President William Henry Harrison. After questions arose from Harrison’s cabinet of Tyler’s role assuming Harrison’s duties, Tyler took the presidential oath of office from a federal judge and declared that he was now acting in the full capacity as President of the United States. The “Tyler Precedent” for presidential succession stood until 1967, when the 25th Amendment formalized the procedure.
By the 1920s, the role of the vice president transitioned to more of an executive branch function. President Warren Harding set a precedent by inviting his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, to cabinet meetings on a regular basis. John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, also attended cabinet meetings at the president’s request and travelled abroad to represent Roosevelt. Soon, vice presidents were deployed by sitting presidents as advocates and ambassadors domestically and globally, and also as presidential campaign surrogates.
In constitutional terms, the biggest change in the position of vice president came with 25th Amendment’s ratification in 1967. The amendment sought to better define the process of determining presidential vacancies and the inability or disability of a president or vice president.
The 25th Amendment’s first two sections formalized the Tyler Precedent. The amendment stated that the vice president becomes president “in case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation.” It also allowed the president and Congress to nominate and approve a new vice president when that office became vacant. The 25th Amendment’s Section 3 allowed the president to notify Congress that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and to designate the vice president to act as president until the president is able to resume work.
However, the Amendment’s Section 4 granted the vice president a pivotal role in a situation where a president may be determined as unable to discharge his official duties, and has not notified Congress of such.
In such a situation, the vice president in conjunction with a majority of the cabinet, or a previously appointed disability board, can notify Congress of the president’s inability to serve, and the vice president becomes acting president. The president then has an opportunity to respond and to notify Congress that he is able to serve. Afterward, the vice president in conjunction with the cabinet or disability board has the option to object to the president’s claim, and a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate can determine the president is indeed unable to serve. In such a situation, “the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office,” the amendment reads.
And as a footnote, the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, combined with the 12th Amendment, includes another restriction on the office of vice president. The 22nd Amendment established terms limits for presidents. The last sentence of the 12th Amendment reads, “But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” These provisions bar a president who was elected twice, or a person who served as president for more than 10 years, from becoming the vice president.
However, the office of vice president does not have term limits.
Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
