The Constitutional Agency of the Vice Presidency

Abstract

The vice presidency is often viewed as constitutionally devoid of any importance or power. Most research on the vice presidency argues that it is only as the vice presidency moved into the executive branch and became more tied to the president that the office gained significance. Yet this significance has come at the cost of the vice presidency’s agency. Vice presidents are more powerful now, but also more subordinate to the president. By drawing out the theory underlying the structure, duties, and powers of the vice presidency, I demonstrate that the Constitution positions the vice president to be an independent institutional actor with the capacity for autonomous action apart from the president and Congress. Furthermore, the vice president’s potential for acting with agency remains salient despite subsequent constitutional amendments and changes in political practices. Indeed, I argue that the development of the modern vice presidency has created tensions at odds with the office’s underlying constitutional structure and authority. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07343469.2021.1964640.