The Evolving Vice Presidency

Abstract

It has long been the prerogative of a presidential nominee to bestow the Vice Presidency upon any constitutionally eligible individual without any measure of popular input or consent. This arrangement may have been tolerable in the past when the Vice President was a mere minion wielding only negligible influence upon the organs of government. But the modern power and prestige of the Vice Presidency - which now holds prime ministerial dominion in America and commands transnational authority - calls for the popular legitimization of the office.

As the Vice Presidency continues to stand only one heartbeat from the Presidency in the precarious international context governing American interaction with friend and foe alike, the office can no longer defensibly remain the exclusive province of a political party's presidential nominee. The United States must democratize the Vice Presidency with some form of popular consent buttressing this focal post in American government, at last liberating the office from its crisis of popular illegitimacy.

Keywords: Vice Presidency, Vice President, Presidential Politics, Constitutional Design, Democratic Convention, Republican Convention, Presidential Nominee, Vice Presidential Nominee, Electoral College, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush, Walter Mondale, Democracy, Democratic Legitimacy