Biden and the Senate
| Mon Dec. 8, 2008 10:13 AM PST
BIDEN AND THE SENATE....Harry Reid got some attention over the weekend for telling the Las Vegas Sun that Joe Biden should stick to his end of Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration:
In a move to reassert Congressional independence at the start of the new presidential administration, the vice president will be barred from joining weekly internal Senate deliberations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview with the Las Vegas Sun...."He can come by once and a while, but he's not going to sit in on our lunches," Reid said. "He's not a senator. He's the vice president."
....A spokeswoman for the vice-president-elect said "Biden had no intention of continuing the practice started by Vice President Cheney of regularly attending internal legislative branch meetings — he firmly believes in restoring the Office of the Vice President to its historical role."
"He and Senator Reid see eye to eye on this," said Biden's spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander.
This is fine, and certainly in keeping with tradition. But here's the funny thing: of all the things that Dick Cheney did to expand the role of the vice president, spending more time on Capitol Hill was one of the few that seemed pretty legitimate to me. The vice president is, after all, the president of the Senate, so the idea that he might spend a lot of time in the Senate cloakroom taking the temperature of presidential initiatives and just generally working to help round up votes — well, that doesn't really sound like much of an abuse to me. The fact that Republican senators tended to knuckle under to Cheney's strongarming says more about Republican senators than it does about whether the vice president is a good choice to liason with Congress.
Of course, all Reid has said is that Biden won't be welcome at Democratic caucus meetings, so maybe we're all reading more into this than is really there. That really was a bridge too far for Cheney, but there's plenty the vice president can do outside of formal caucus meetings if he wants to. And offhand, I can't think why he wouldn't want to.
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Comments
I think Cheney's meddling at the Pentagon (Office of Special Plans) and the CIA (outing Valerie Plame, etc.) were far more pernicious than his legislative strong-arming on Capitol Hill. There's nothing wrong with the VP acting as the President's point man on certain legislative initiatives. What Cheney did was erect a shadow government run out of his office which had the authority to bypass traditional cabinet-level prerogatives in order to formulate policy and influence the President -- all with complete secrecy and no accountability.
That, thankfully, will come to an end under Biden.
And in all that time there wasn't a single fricken oversight hearing. Cheney thought his entire office was a part of the legislative branch, above examination. Hopefully, Obama and Biden will recognize their own Org chart - where the top is occupied by "The Constitution"
I never thought I'd see this blog make the mistake of Gov. Palin.
The role of the VP in 'presiding' over the Senate is a CEREMONIAL role. The VP does not control the legislative calender, the legislative schedule, or any of the other levers of machinery by which the majority control of the Senate is exercised by the Senate Majority Leader.
The sole legitimate role of the VP in the Senate, besides occasionally presiding and keeping reasonable regular order on the floor with his/her gavel, is to vote when there is otherwise a tie.
If the VP wants to take the temperature of the Senate by regularly meeting with the lead caucus, or something, perhaps it could be done, IF the president so authorizes it be done. Otherwise, it would seem a clear overstepping of the proper role, IMO.
You're forgetting that once they engineered Lott's removal and installed their little lickspittle Frist, Cheney's presence was the master's voice. He wasn't a genial go-between but was truly a Darth Cheney, or more like the emperor to Frist's Vader.
Sofia's right. The constitution isn't just what's written but what people have done. Until Cheney and Frist, the Senate was run by senators. No senate leaders worthy of the name would have allowed a VP into their talks. Instead there was Frist.
Cheney's purpose there was to give orders and intimidate senators, not to sound them out and lobby for the White House. Nothing that innocent.
He can meet them on his own turf to sound them out and lobby them. Instead, Cheney invaded their turf and claimed to own it, completely contrary to how things had been done.
Remember that constitutional law is largely custom. The VP has no business doing what Cheney was doing and there's no justification in convention and usage for what he was doing.
Submitted by Jim Pharo (not verified) on Tue Dec. 9, 2008 9:56 AM PST.
I'm hoping President Obama can make more productive use of the VP than to have him be a weak assistant whip.
Gore made a significant contribution as VP, likely including the success of this here in-tor-net thingie...
Obama strikes me as someone who will want every asset producing the best it can, even an old hack like Joe Biden.
