A powerful vice presidency

[Johnrankins]

How could you change the constitution so the vice president has some real power and is doing more then just waiting for the president dies?

[Wendell]

VPs break tie votes in the Senate, and can through that capacity, in rare cases, vote to make themselves Vice President. There is not a great need to give them much more formal power.

[DuQuense]

Under the Consitution the President is a realitivily weak Office, to increase the power of the VP, you first must increase the power of the President.

[DMA]

Having two powerful positions in charge of running the country is far from a good thing IMHO. Not only would the lines of authority become muddled, but it could well create competition between the two - in other words a struggle for ultimate power. Needles to say, this could be very unproductive if not downright dangerous for good government. Don't forget the position of VP, originally, was supposed to go to the runner up in the election for President. That didn't work out too well two centuries ago. In a modern nuclear armed world it could mean total disaster.

[Johnrankins]

Originally Posted by DMA

Having two powerful positions in charge of running the country is far from a good thing IMHO. Not only would the lines of authority become muddled, but it could well create competition between the two - in other words a struggle for ultimate power. Needles to say, this could be very unproductive if not downright dangerous for good government. Don't forget the position of VP, originally, was supposed to go to the runner up in the election for President. That didn't work out too well two centuries ago. In a modern nuclear armed world it could mean total disaster.

I'm not saying in charge, just more powerful. Right now the position is useless. An idea I have is to have the VP recommend 3 or 4 people for each cabinet position. The president could pick one or chose one of his own.

[DMA]

Originally Posted by Johnrankins

I'm not saying in charge, just more powerful. Right now the position is useless. An idea I have is to have the VP recommend 3 or 4 people for each cabinet position. The president could pick one or chose one of his own.

Well this only further muddles the lines of authority. Combine that with confusion as to who is ultimately responsible for the Administration's actions & policy. It's bad enough now, in regards to these things, so I don't think such a reform to the VP's Office will make things any better. IMHO it'll make things worse.

And there's still what I said before. You'll end up having the President & the VP competing officially for power, thus possibly spliting the Adminstration into two power blocks. Now it happens to a limited degree now, but it's all behind closed doors & kept under control, but this type of reform makes it official. Ultimately it could mean a power grab in the Executive - in other words a civil war within the government itself.

[JP_Morgan]

Originally Posted by Johnrankins

How could you change the constitution so the vice president has some real power and is doing more then just waiting for the president dies?

You don't need to change the Constitution. It's already happened. Cheney has more than likely dictated the direction of certain policies in the administration. But even without some guy like Cheney, future VPs will at least have an advisory role in making decisions.