Vice President of the United States
The vice president is indirectly elected together with the president to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College. The role of the vice presidency has changed dramatically since the office was created during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Most modern vice presidents serve as a key presidential advisor, governing partner, and representative of the president. The Vice President is also a statutory member of the National Security Council and thus plays a significant role in national security matters.
About Vice President of the United States in brief
The vice president is indirectly elected together with the president to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College. The modern vice presidency is a position of significant power and is widely seen as an integral part of a president’s administration. The role of the vice presidency has changed dramatically since the office was created during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Most modern vice presidents serve as a key presidential advisor, governing partner, and representative of the president. The Vice President is also a statutory member of the National Security Council and thus plays a significant role in national security matters. The vice president’s role began steadily growing in importance during the 1930s, with the Office of the Vice President being created in the executive branch in 1939, and has since grown much further. The current vice president, Kamala Harris, is the first Black, first South Asian, and first female occupant of the office. She assumed office on January 20, 2021, and will be the 49th vice president of the U.S. and the first female to hold the position of vice president in more than 50 years. The first two vice presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both gained the office by virtue of being runners-up in presidential contests. Several 19th-century presidents, such as George Dallas, presided regularly over the Senate proceedings and did much to shape the shape of the Senate. If there were a tie for first or second place or if no one won a majority of votes, the president and vice president would be selected by means of contingent elections.
The Constitution does not expressly assign the vice president to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars about which branch of government the office belongs to: 1) theexecutive branch, 2) the legislative branch, 3) both, or 4) neither. For example, vice presidents now preside over the House and Senate only infrequently, and may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote in a presidential election. The position is now often considered to be a stepping stone to the presidency, as it is a key part of an administration’s policymaking process and is often tasked with helping to advance an Administration’s legislative priorities. It is also the second-highest officer in the federal government, after the president, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. It was created by the Constitution’s framers in 1787, when an 11-member committee on ‘Leftover Business’ proposed a method of electing the chief executive. The committee recommended that the nation’s chief executive be elected by an Electoral College, with each state having a number of presidential electors equal to the sum of that state’s allocation of representatives and senators. Each elector was allowed to vote for two candidates, but could not differentiate between their first and second choice for the presidency. The person receiving the greatest number of votes would be the next president, while the individual who received the next largest number of Votes became the next vice president. This all changed on September 4, when the committee recommended the election method.
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This page is based on the article Vice President of the United States published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 24, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
