Vice President of the United States

The Vice President of the United States is the person who is "a heartbeat from the presidency": he becomes the President of the United States upon the death, resignation, or removal by impeachment of the President. Should the Vice President be unable to assume the Presidency, next in line is the Speaker of the House, followed by the President pro tem of the Senate. (If none of these individuals is able to become President, succession proceeds through the Cabinet. See: United States Presidential line of succession.) The Vice President also serves as the President of the Senate.

The Vice President and his family live at Number One Observatory Circle, on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC.

Constitutional requirements

The Vice President must have the same constitutional qualifications as the President and cannot come from the same state. (In fact, this second requirement is not a constitutional requirement. What the Constitution provides is that if the candidates for President and Vice President come from the same state, the electors from that state could not vote for both. This might result in the Vice Presidential candidate receiving insufficiently many electoral votes for election even if the Presidential candidate is elected.) In practice the second requirement is easily circumvented by having the Vice President change the state of residency as was done by Dick Cheney who changed his legal residency from Texas to Wyoming in order to serve as Vice President for George W. Bush.

As President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3), the vice president oversees procedural matters, and the ability to cast a vote in the event of a tie. There is a strong convention within the United States Senate, that the Vice President not use his position as President of the Senate to influence the passage of legislation or act in a partisan manner, except in the case of breaking tie votes.

Role of the Vice President

The formal powers and role of the Vice President with a healthy, functioning President are limited to the Presidency of the Senate, including a casting vote in the event of a deadlock. This was important in the first half of 2001, as the Senators were divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats and thus Dick Cheney's casting vote gave the Republicans the Senate majority.

Their other functions are as a spokesperson for the administration's policy, as an adviser to the President, and as a symbol of American concern or support. Their influence in this role depends almost entirely on the characteristics of the particular administration. Cheney, for instance, is widely regarded as one of George W. Bush's closest confidantes. Often Vice Presidents will take harder-line stands on issues to ensure the support of the party's base while deflecting partisan criticism away from the President. Other times their primary role seems to be meeting heads of state or attending state funerals in other countries, at times when the administration wishes to demonstrate concern or support without having to actually send the President himself to do so.

Historically, the office of Vice President has been viewed as political suicide. John Nance Garner famously described the office as "not worth a pitcher of warm spit." The natural stepping stone to the Presidency was long considered to be the Secretary of State. It has only been fairly recently that this notion has reversed; indeed, the notion was still very much alive when Harry S Truman became the Vice President for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Normally, candidates for President will name a candidate for Vice President when they are assured of the party's nomination. Since the Presidential candidate is now generally known before the party convention, this announcement is now typically made in the first day or so of the party convention. Generally the choice of running mate is made by the Presidential candidate alone and often is done to create balance on a ticket. It is common for the Vice Presidential candidate will come from a different region than the President or appeal to a slightly different ideological part of the party.

Changes with the 25th Amendment

Since the adoption of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1967, "Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress." (Prior to that time, if the Vice President died in office, resign, or succeeded to the Presidency, the office of Vice President remained vacant until the next Presidential election.)

Gerald Ford was the first Vice President selected by this method, after the resignation of Spiro Agnew; after succeeding to the Presidency, Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President.

The 25th Amendment also provides means for the Vice President to temporarily become Acting President upon the temporary disability of the President. This procedure has been activated twice: once on July 13, 1985, when Ronald Reagan underwent surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon, and then on June 29, 2002, when President George W. Bush underwent a colonoscopy requiring sedation.

Prior to this amendment, Vice President Richard Nixon replaced President Eisenhower on an informal basis three times for a period of weeks each time when Eisenhower was ill.

Vice Presidents of the United States

#	Name	Took Office	Left Office	Party
1	John Adams	1789	1797	Federalist
2	Thomas Jefferson	1797	1801	Democratic-Republican
3	Aaron Burr	1801	1805	Democratic-Republican
4	George Clinton¹	1805	1812	Democratic-Republican
5	Elbridge Gerry¹	1813	1814	Democratic-Republican
6	Daniel D. Tompkins	1817	1825	Democratic-Republican
7	John Caldwell Calhoun²	1825	1832	Democratic-Republican
8	Martin Van Buren	1833	1837	Democrat
9	Richard Mentor Johnson	1837	1841	Democrat
10	John Tyler³	1841	1841	Whig
11	George Mifflin Dallas	1845	1849	Democrat
12	Millard Fillmore³	1849	1850	Whig
13	William Rufus DeVane King¹	1853	1853	Democrat
14	John Cabell Breckinridge	1857	1861	Democrat
15	Hannibal Hamlin	1861	1865	Republican
16	Andrew Johnson³	1865	1865	Democrat
17	Schuyler Colfax	1869	1873	Republican
18	Henry Wilson¹	1873	1875	Republican
19	William Almon Wheeler	1877	1881	Republican
20	Chester Alan Arthur³	1881	1881	Republican
21	Thomas Andrews Hendricks¹	1885	1885	Democrat
22	Levi Parsons Morton	1889	1893	Republican
23	Adlai Ewing Stevenson	1893	1897	Democrat
24	Garret Augustus Hobart¹	1897	1899	Republican
25	Theodore Roosevelt³	1901	1901	Republican
26	Charles Warren Fairbanks	1905	1909	Republican
27	James Schoolcraft Sherman¹	1909	1912	Republican
28	Thomas Riley Marshall	1913	1921	Democrat
29	John Calvin Coolidge, Jr³	1921	1923	Republican
30	Charles Gates Dawes	1925	1929	Republican
31	Charles Curtis	1929	1933	Republican
32	John Nance Garner	1933	1941	Democrat
33	Henry Agard Wallace	1941	1945	Democrat
34	Harry S Truman³	1945	1945	Democrat
35	Alben William Barkley	1949	1953	Democrat
36	Richard Milhous Nixon	1953	1961	Republican
37	Lyndon Baines Johnson³	1961	1963	Democrat
38	Hubert Horatio Humphrey	1965	1969	Democrat
39	Spiro Theodore Agnew²	1969	1973	Republican
40	Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr³	1973	1974	Republican
41	Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller	1974	1977	Republican
42	Walter Frederick Mondale	1977	1981	Democrat
43	George Herbert Walker Bush	1981	1989	Republican
44	James Danforth Quayle III	1989	1993	Republican
45	Albert Arnold Gore, Jr	1993	2001	Democrat
46	Richard Bruce Cheney	2001	-	Republican

Notes: ¹Died in office. ²Resigned. ³Succeeded to the Presidency.

Prior to the ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967, no provision existed for the selection of a Vice President in the event of a vacancy in the office (by death, resignation, or succession to the Presidency). Consequently, the position remained vacant until the next election and inauguration.

Vice Presidential facts

Seven Vice Presidents have died in office:

• George Clinton in 1812
• Elbridge Gerry in 1814
• William Rufus DeVane King in 1853
• Henry Wilson in 1875
• Thomas Andrews Hendricks in 1885
• Garret Augustus Hobart in 1899
• James Schoolcraft Sherman in 1912

Two Vice Presidents have resigned from office:

• John C. Calhoun resigned in 1832 to take a seat in the Senate, having been chosen to fill a vacancy.
• Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 while under investigation for accepting bribes in his previous position as governor of Maryland.

Nine Vice Presidents succeeded to the Presidency:

• John Tyler became President when William Harrison died a month into office.
• Millard Fillmore became President after Zachary Taylor died in office.
• Andrew Johnson became President when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
• Chester A. Arthur became President after James Garfield was assassinated.
• Theodore Roosevelt became President after William McKinley was assassinated.
• Calvin Coolidge became President after Warren G. Harding died in office.
• Harry S Truman became President after Franklin Roosevelt died in office.
• Lyndon Johnson became President after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
• Gerald Ford became President after Richard Nixon resigned.

Of those who succeeded above, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S Truman, and Lyndon Johnson would later be re-elected in their own right as President.

Five Vice Presidents did not succeed to the Presidency but were later elected President in their own right:

• John Adams (1789-1797) was elected President in the 1796 election.
• Thomas Jefferson (1797-1801) was elected President in the 1800 election.
• Martin Van Buren (1833-1837) was elected President in the 1836 election.
• Richard Nixon (1953-1961) was elected President in the 1968 election.
• George H. W. Bush (1981-1989) was elected President in the 1988 election.