Against The Vice Presidency

Gene Healy, surveying the wreckage of the Cheney years and the odd answers given at the VP debate to questions about the scope of the Veep’s powers, says: “Here’s hoping that Vice President Biden or Vice President Palin will spend less time making policy and more time attending funerals.”

Alternatively, let me once again bring up the simpler solution to the question of the VP’s weird, ambiguous status — abolish the office. The scheme set up in the constitution doesn’t make sense. The office was originally designed as a prize for the second-place finisher in what was envisioned as a multi-candidate presidential field without running mates. Once the two-party system emerged, the procedure immediately created serious problems that had to be rectified by Amendment XII to the Constitution, but though that amendment prevented potential disasters it didn’t rectify the fact that the basic conception of the office is bizarre given our actual political institutions. It would be simple for the line of succession in the event of presidential death to pass directly from the President to the various cabinet officers in some order. Yes, it would take a constitutional amendment to make the change. But unlike with other process reforms that I think the country could use, there’s no entrenched interest group with a stake in keeping the vice presidency alive — it’s just sloth. But if everyone agrees that nobody understands what the VP is supposed to do the solution is simple — get rid of the VP.