Post-debate

[unixronin]

Or, in which just about everyone analyzes the dog-and-pony show.  Having no TV service, I was mercifully spared the direct brain-melting experience.  From what I'm hearing, neither candidate pulled off what anyone could fairly call a stirring performance, but Joe Biden started the ball rolling with a gaffe that's pretty inexcusable for an alleged Constitutional scholar, and just about everyone is calling him on the carpet for it.

Would it be too much to ask for us to have legislators and executives who actually know, and pay attention to, the Constitution? It IS supposed to be the supreme law of the land, after all.

Comments

[tommx.livejournal.com]

I wasn't too crazy about Palin's support of the idea of extending the power of the VP to the legislative branch. Er, anyone ever heard of separation of powers?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You mean other than being the president of the Senate?

[tommx.livejournal.com]

Only insofar as having a vote when there's a tie in the Senate. The Vice President has no authority relative to congress, and does not regularly preside over the senate. By that rationale, you may as well say that the President is part of the legislative branch because of his veto power.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly. What I meant was, is this about something else besides that? I probably didn't make it clear I was asking that.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

The VP serves as Presiding Officer when the Senate acts as an impeachment court, for any impeachment proceeding other than the President. That's an authority relative to Congress.

Re: "regularly presiding over the Senate," this is true only since the late 20th century. Earlier VPs took their job as President of the Senate quite seriously.

The VP's pay, living arrangements, pension, and everything else come from the Legislative Branch as opposed to the Executive.

It wasn't until Spiro Agnew (Nixon's first VP) that the VP really began to be considered as part of the Executive.