More than 200 years after its creation, the vice presidency remains the least defined, and outright oddest, major political office in the United States. With almost no formal powers but the critical responsibility of needing to be prepared to assume the leadership of the nation at any moment, vice presidents occupy a position that, like the electoral college that selects them, was a clumsy 1787 solution to a practical problem of constitutional mechanics. …
The model for her vice presidency, Biden and his aides often said, was Biden’s own experience serving under Barack Obama, when he was considered to be an unusually successful and influential vice president by historical standards.
But it’s impossible for Biden and Harris to replicate the relationship that existed between Obama and Biden. Harris is simply not situated in the same place that Biden was as VP, and the implications of this difference have already begun to emerge only five months into her term. CONTINUED
David A. Hopkins (Boston College), Honest Graft