Virtual event explores role of US vice president

AMMAN — The principal function of the US vice president and purpose is to provide high-level assistance to help make the presidency succeed, in addition to the constitutional role and standing first in line of presidential succession, a US scholar said during a recent virtual briefing.

The description of the role of the vice president has developed in recent decades, but it was not always thus, said Joel K. Goldstein, Vincent C. Immel professor emeritus of Law at St Louis University School of Law, during the briefing titled: “The Role of the Vice President”.

While the vice presidency can be looked at as an office in and of itself, it also is an example of the way in which American political and governmental institutions can evolve, taking on more consequential and different roles than what was initially intended, he said.

The briefing is part of the “Elections 2020: A Virtual Reporting Tour of the United States and the American Electoral Process”, held and organised by the Foreign Press Centres at the US Department of State — Bureau of Global Public Affairs.

“To begin with, the traditional arrangement of the vice presidency, the Constitution gives the vice president two roles. The vice president is the president of the Senate, and has a tie-breaking vote when the Senate is tied. And the vice president stands first in line of presidential succession,” the briefer said.

“For most of the 19th century, and for the first half of the 20th century, the vice president was really a legislative officer. Vice presidents from John Adams, our first vice president, to Alvin Barkley, who was Harry Truman’s vice president from 1949 to 1953, spent most of their time presiding over the Senate. They took on really little or no function in the executive branch,” he added.

Until the middle of the 20th century, vice presidents were chosen typically by party leaders for the national ticket, and the presidential candidates barely had an influence, if any, in choosing their “running mates”.

As a result, the president and vice president were often not compatible, either personally or politically, Goldsten said, noting that oftentimes they also represented different ideological points of view, and in most of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th, “many vice presidents were pretty undistinguished figures”.

Moreover, many of the vice presidents chosen between 1812 and 1912 were in poor health, and seven of them in that period died while in office, according to Goldstein, who said that many vice presidents also had modest credentials.

“The vice presidency was not viewed as an attractive position for somebody who was politically ambitious,” Goldstein said.

Up until the 1950s, the vice presidency was for the most part a political dead end, not seen as a “springboard” to the presidency, Goldstein said, noting that this started to change in the 20th century when the position moved from the legislative branch into the executive branch.

The change is related to large changes in American life, including “the New Deal” and World War II, which made the national government more important, the briefer said, noting that the presidency itself became more important with the Cold War.

“It became important for the United States to compete with the Soviet Union for influence abroad in an atomic age. It became important that the presidential successor be somebody who was informed and who was well thought of. Technology changed as well, and that created possibilities for foreign travel, for media exposure, and so forth,” he added.

Beginning with vice president Nixon, at the time of his office the changes began, he became an occasional presidential adviser who attended national security meetings and other meetings in the White House as well, according to Goldstein.

He added, “President Eisenhower used vice president Nixon as a foreign emissary, sent him on international trips, sometimes for as long as a month or two months at a time.”

Therefore, the vice presidency became the best presidential springboard in American life, and in this new model the vice president functioned in the executive branch, but they still tended to be peripheral to the operations in the White House, brought for some issues but not others, the briefer said.

“The real significant change began with the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the vice presidency of Walter Mondale, during the transition of 1976 to 1977. In the Carter administration, the vice president was brought into the White House itself. And vice president Mondale became part of president Carter’s inner circle,” Goldstein said.

He added, “In this new model of what I’ve called the White House Vice Presidency, which began with president Carter/vice president Mondale, has really been followed ever since. With some variations, but on a bipartisan basis by the administrations that have followed during the last 44 years.”

There have been variations in the relations between the president and vice president that depended on the latter’s decision-making style and needs, but nonetheless they all followed the basic role of treating the vice president as a high-level adviser and trouble-shooter, Goldstein said during the virtual brief.

Last week, Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris had their first vice presidential debate, which lasted for around 90 minutes, which seemed to show more civility and less rowdiness than the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, during which there were repeated interruption and uncivility between the two candidates.

During the debate, Harris and Pence criticised each other’s administrations while discussing issues related to the health of American people during COVID-19 as well as economic changes, especially those related to taxes, and focus also given to issues of climate change.