Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, October 03, 2008 1:02:00 PM
Joe Biden’s response on the constitutional role of the Vice Presidency
is so riddled with error that it is difficult to know where to start.
He said, “The idea, he [Vice President Cheney] doesn’t realize that
Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the Vice President.
That’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch.” Biden,
who has been a member of the Senate for decades, doesn’t know that
Article I of the Constitution defines the legislative powers of the
federal government. It delineates and limits Congressional authority,
and does not speak to Executive functions.
Article II of the
Constitution sets out the President’s executive authority. Guess what,
Joe? The Vice President is mentioned in both Articles. Article II
provides that the Vice President shall serve “together with” the
President and thus establishes the Office of the Vice President. But
Article I names the Vice President as President of the Senate, which
makes him both the Presiding Officer and the tie breaking vote in the
Senate. He is not a Senator (thus, for instance, not entitled to
constitutional speech or debate immunity), but he is an Officer of the
Senate.
So Joe, what about Article I suggests that the Vice
President doesn’t have a Legislative function? He clearly does. Vice
President Cheney has voted on the passage of legislation a number of
times, as have his predecessors. He could, on any day he wanted,
physically preside over the Senate. Senate practice since John Adams
has essentially excluded the VP from debates on the Senate floor, but
as the Presiding Officer of the Senate, he is certainly “of” the Senate.
If anyone would have guessed before the debate which candidate would
make an error on a Constitutional question, odds would have heavily
favored Sarah Palin. After all, Joe Biden has a license to practice
law and has served in Congress more than half his life, while Palin has
a degree in journalism and has never worked in Washington at all. And
yet, Biden blew the one question on the Constitution — on the topic of the job he seeks
First, let’s deal with the hyperbole of the initial statement, because the rest of the gaffe flows from that point. Democrats love
to call Dick Cheney “the most dangerous vice president” in American
history, but why is Cheney such a danger? What has he done that makes
him so dangerous? Is he more dangerous than Aaron Burr, for instance,
who killed Alexander Hamilton while in office and who later attempted a
rebellion of sorts? And if he’s so dangerous, what has Joe Biden done as a United States Senator to curb that danger?
Biden then goes on to get the Constitution completely incorrect. In fact, the Constitution states that the Vice President is always the President of the Senate, in Article I, Section 3:
The Vice President of the United States shall be
President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally
divided.
In fact, as Cheney pointed out, the Vice President gets defined in
the Constitution in both Article I and Article II, making the office
part of both branches of the federal government. Cheney’s argument
that this gave him some sort of immunity from producing documents was
absurd, but his reading of the Constitution was absolutely correct.
The VP belongs to both the executive and the legislative branches of
government — and has almost no power in either, but still gets defined
in the Constitution as a member of both branches.
Stephen Dinan notes that modern practice has led to historical and Constitutional illiteracy:
The Constitution, though, actually says the vice
president is always president of the Senate and legal scholars say he
has the right to preside at any time. Early vice presidents, such as
Thomas Jefferson, actively exercised that role, the vice president
still keeps offices at the Capitol, and scholars say it wasn’t until
the middle of the 20th century that the vice president had an office at
the executive office building.
The president pro tempore, usually the senior senator from the
majority party, takes over only when the vice president is absent. In
recent practice, as the vice president has taken a bigger role in the
executive, that’s meant the Senate operates almost all of the time
without the vice president in the chair.
Maybe Biden should take the time to actually read the
Constitution. He can borrow Robert Byrd’s pocket version if he can’t
find a copy on his own. Who knew Sarah Palin was a more competent
Constitutional scholar than Joe Biden?