The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people through the Electoral College to a four-year term of office. The Vice President is the first person in the presidential line of succession, and would ascend to the Presidency upon the death, resignation, or removal of the President.
Under the Constitution, the Vice President is President of the United States Senate. In that capacity, he or she is allowed to vote in the Senate when necessary to break a tie. While Senate customs have created supermajority rules that have diminished this Constitutional power, the Vice President still retains the ability to influence legislation (e.g. the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005). Pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the Vice President presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College.
While the Vice President's only constitutionally prescribed functions aside from Presidential succession relate to his role as President of the Senate, the office is commonly viewed as a component of the executive branch of the federal government. The United States Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing a dispute amongst scholars whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the Vice President as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the Vice President by either the President or Congress, though such activities are only recent historical developments.
Read more about Vice President Of The United States: Origin, Roles of The Vice President, Growth of The Office, Post–Vice Presidency
Famous quotes containing the words united states, vice, president, united and/or states:
“Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“A great world leader is gone. Liberty loving people around the globe are sad tonight. We are strengthened in the thought of President Roosevelt’s work for little people everywhere.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)