Legal History Commons^™

Failure To Act And The Separation Of Powers-The Vice Presidency And The Need To Surmount Divided Power In Pursuit Of A Workable Government, Douglas W. Kmiec

Pepperdine Law Review

Is the Vice President an executive officer, a legislative officer, or both? This query has existed since the time of the founding. The question poses more difficulty than one might suppose, and it remains unsettled. It can be convenient to ignore questions that one cannot answer, and thus, the Vice President has been the object of political humor and treated as an appendage without present function. Yet, because we attribute great genius to those who drafted the Constitution, what is the effect of leaving this high-ranking officer without adequate definition or purpose? For the first century and a half of …