As we are talking about fixing democracy, we need a canary in the
coal mine in office. No, I am not talking about a literal canary, but
someone who can play devil's advocate and hopefully suppress the radical ideas
of idealist Presidents. I am talking about altering the role of the Vice
President.
Vice Presidential Fixes: So we all know that if the
President can no longer serve as President for whatever reason that the Vice
President takes over. Did you know that the Vice President is the
President of the Senate according to the Constitution? What this means is
that the Vice President organizes debate on the Senate floor and only has a
vote there in the event of a tie. And that is pretty much it. Or
should it be? If we are going to fix the role of the Vice President, then
we need to make him/her the opposition. This means that the runner up in
a Presidential election will be the Vice President so as to be the devil's
advocate and be the canary that says the President is going too far. But
how would that work? How is a Vice President going to be in meetings with
the President (especially if the Vice President is not liked) while actually
doing the job as President of the Senate? Well, the Senate is not meant
to be in session all the time, and the Vice President is not necessarily there
all the time either. Sure, the Vice President can keep the tie breaking
vote as the Vice President represents government and not necessarily the
people. So what about making the Vice President the chief of staff?
The Chief of Staff organizes meetings, and oversees the operations of the
Executive branch. That is one way to make sure that the Vice President is
in on the meetings, but that may be pushing it. The reason being is that
the Vice President need not be in meetings to be the canary, and is meant in
this case to go public with his/her reservations. We need a Vice
President that is designed to usurp and undermine the President's power via
public statements. So remaining the President of the Senate is fine along
with the tie breaking vote. But adding in the equivalent of a State of
the Union address would be most beneficial. In this case, the Vice
President would publically go before the Congress and the Senate and voice
his/her concerns. In this instance, the time frame for these speeches
will be the week prior to Election Day each year at minimum and at maximum
additional ones can be held or the Vice President may address the people
publically through media and the press. No President wants to be
reprimanded or look bad the week before elections are held for that means his
or her opposition can gain just the foothold they need to usurp the President's
allies in the Congress and the Senate. People listen and the American
people will listen to the Vice President if we give the appropriate title and message
in the speech the Vice President will be making. So we can label it
"The State of Opposition" speech.
Conclusion: Other than that, the Vice President really
has no roll, save maybe formalizing the Vice President attending State
funerals, weddings and other events in the President's place. The Vice
President can informally also stand in for the President at Cabinet meetings or
other official business, but these will need to be added into the Constitution
much like the "State of the Opposition" speech in order to formalize
duties and actually give the Vice President any semblance of political clout.
So let the Vice President meet with foreign dignitaries on behalf of the
President, perform all ceremonial duties and basically any public duties. This
keeps the Vice President in the limelight in contrast to the President's power,
but makes the President's presence all that much more important when he/she
does eventually appear in a non-ceremonial or even a ceremonial function with
the Vice President. They will literally be competing for public attention
with the Vice President having the advantage of making connections and being
the most visible person to the public at large (which will help to ensure that
people listen to that speech). I thought of making the Vice President
the Secretary of State, but that defeats the canary in the coalmine idea, so we
will have to settle for all ceremonial duties being carried out by the Vice
President, formalizing his/her role as a stand in when the President is absent and
hopefully adding that opposition speech in for good measure.
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