Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Of The Vice Presidency 20160606

One hour. Good evening. Picked up copies of an article from the wall street journal recently as you entered the auditorium on the impact of the Vice President ial nominee on election results. For those of you who did not pick up copies, we will have extras after the program. Tonight, we will be discussing not just the electoral process, but the evolving role of the vice presidency. We have the honor of hosting professor joel goldstein, the author of the newly released book, the white house Vice President scy. Dr. Goldstein is a highly respected scholar of the vice presidency, presidency, and constitutional law. Ishas consistent consistently sought out by Media Outlets for commentary and insight, especially during the president ial campaigns. The new article in york times, he was quoted as saying my wife says i am an exotic plant that blooms every four years. [laughter] professor goldstein is best known for his work on the vice presidency. It came out of his doctoral work, his dissertation, and led to his first book which was modern american vice presidency the transformation of a political institution. He has authored numerous books chapters and articles on the executive branch, constitutional law, and admiralty law. He received a doctorate in Political Science at Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar and then a law degree from Harvard Law School where he was a note editor for the harvard law review. After law school, he was a law clerk for a federal judge in massachusetts and then practiced admiralty law for 12 years in st. Louis. He joined the st. Louis University School of law in 1994, was associate dean of the faculty for three years, and was 2005. D a professorship in one scholar commented the american vice presidency is long overdue for a robust reevaluation. Joel goldstein, the premier chronicler of that special office, has done a brilliant job in this book. Please help me join professor goldstein to the four president ial library ford president ial library. [applause] dr. Goldstein thank you so much for that wonderful interdiction. Im delighted to be back at the library. I did research here for my book. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to be here. When most of you think about president ford, you probably think about him as our 38th president , a man who served nearly 25 years in the house of representatives, who was the minority leader of the house for eight years, and was a good and decent public servant. I think about the fact he was our 40th Vice President , a position he held for nine months, and was probably the least happy time of his public service. Ut he was an important figure he was the first Vice President appointed to the position through the 25th amendment which became part of the constitution in 1967. He was the second person to make an appointment of a Vice President under the 25th amendment. He was the most recent Vice President to succeed to the presidency following an unexpected president ial vacancy, and the only one of those people to succeed following a president ial resignation. He is the only president in our seriously consider serving as Vice President after he already serve as president. The presidency and vice presidency came before. He played an important part in developing and creating the office we have today. We live in a time now where we have a very robust vice presidency. What is so striking about that, in addition to the rather checkered history of the vice presidency for most of our history, is that the vice presidency has grown to its current importance at a time when many of our other Major Political institutions are being met with increasing dissatisfaction. If you think about the current situation, Vice President biden is completing the final year of a consequential and involved vice presidency. If you look at what he has done in the past week or so, he traveled to iraq to meet with its embattled Prime Minister and support the military mission against the islamic state. He went to italy where he met with officials of the italian government, and he met with officials of the vatican including pope francis. He spoke at a vatican conference on combating disease. He met privately with president obama numerous times during the past week, including receiving the president s Daily Briefing each day. He had private lunch with the president today and did two other events with him. He joined the president s meeting with secretary kerry within the last week. He met with the leaders of el salvador, guatemala, honduras, and panama to discuss how to advance security and economic matters in central america. If you call Vice President bidens predecessor, dick cheney, who first came to National Attention as president fords chief of staff, during his vice presidency many people said they thought the vice presidency had become too powerful and spoke of an imperial ice presidency vice presidency. Although i think Vice President cheneys power was exaggerated in that he was never president and his influence to client during the second term of president Bush Administration, he clearly was a significant Vice President. But it did not start with biden and cheney. The last six Vice President s over the last 40 years, ever since were for Mondale Walter Mondale was Vice President , have positions. Ufficient the position is institutional, not personal. It has now become one of our governments most important and contributing institutions in the executive branch. Not simply as the first president ial successor, but as a critical instrument of the presidency on an ongoing basis. It was not always this way. Our first Vice President , john adams, said my country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that mans imagination ever conceived. I can do neither good nor evil. Woodrow wilson was a political scientist before he became president. He wrote about the chief embarrassment in discussing these five the vice presidency is when you say how little there is to be said about it, you have said all there is to say about it. His Vice President was thomas marshall. On retirement, mr. Marshalls said i dont want to work anymore. But i would not mind being Vice President again. [laughter] when president ford became our 40th Vice President , when he was sworn into that position in 1973, he referred to the limited powers and duties of the vice presidency. His Vice President , Nelson Rockefeller, disparaged his final office as simply standby equipment in 1976. How did we get from the Office President ford called the limited powers and duties of the vice presidency and rockefeller referred to as simply standby equipment in the mid1970s, to the very different, Robust Office we have today . What i want to do in the next few minutes is give a brief overview of the vice presidency as it existed for most of our history. Then to sketch the office as it exists today, what i have called the white house vice presidency. And then make a few suggestions as to what i think we can learn from this transformation. The vice presidency was not one of the Founding Fathers great successes. It was created for reasons now obsolete. The founders were concerned that after george washington, it would be impossible to elect a national president. They were worried that parochial considerations would force electors in different states to vote for their states favorite son, rather than to elect a national president. In order to combat that concern, they created the original president ial election system. And they gave each elector two votes for president. But they required that one of those votes had to be cast for somebody who was not from the electors home state. What they hoped would happen was the second vote, the boat that was not going to be home state favorite son, would produce a of president. Nsus in essence, they created the vice presidency to provide an incentive for electors to vote seriously so there would be a consequence to their vote. Somebody would be elected to the second office. Hugh williamson from north carolina, a delegate to the philadelphia convention, said the vice presidency was not wanted. It was created to facilitate a valuable mode of president ial election. , who recentlylton has experienced a resurgence, wrote the president ial electoral system, including the vice presidency, is if not perfect at least excellent. I hesitate to take mr. Hamilton on given his current standing. But i think history would demonstrate he was wrong at least in that judgment. By 1796, National Parties have begun to form. What they were doing was slating tickets of one candidate for ticket, one candidate for Vice President. 1800, Thomas Jefferson and ehrenberg were running together with the understanding jefferson was the president ial candidate and burr was the Vice President of candidate. They ended up in a type. Although jeffersons votes were for president and burrs for Vice President , they resulted in a tie. It took the house of representatives 36 ballots to break the tie and elect jefferson as president. After that, the jeffersonians were afraid the federalists in the future could bargain with whoever was jeffersons running mate to make a deal with him and thereby elect jeffersons Vice President joe running mate as president Vice President ial running mate as president. Enacted the 12th amendment to the constitution which separated the election of president and Vice President so the electors would vote not twice for president , but once for president and wants for Vice President. That change eliminated the original reason to have the vice presidency. In discussions of the 12th amendment, some said we should get rid of the vice presidency. But they decided it was simply to keep of it than to get rid of it, so the vice presidency continued. It continued entirely as a legislative office. The Vice President s sole responsibility was to provide over the senate. At the philadelphia convention, Roger Sherman said if the Vice President is not president of the senate, he is not going to have anything to do. They agreed the Vice President would be president of the senate. That is what Vice President s up to Alvin Barkley did. They spent most of their professional time presiding over the senate. But the senate did not elect the Vice President and could not remove the Vice President , so the senate was never interested in letting the Vice President have much control. So the Vice President would preside but really have no power over the senate. The other function of the Vice President was to serve as the president ial successor. But that was an entirely contingent role. For most of our history, the vice presidency was pretty insignificant. Doe president s had little to so they looked for other things to keep themselves busy. Richard johnson, martin van spents Vice President , much of his time when he was not presiding over the Senate Running a tavern in washington. Henry wilson, who was ulysses grants second Vice President , wrote history books during his vice presidency. Theodore roosevelt who did not want to be Vice President said he would rather be just about anything other than Vice President , it was too little work for a man of only 42 years old, thought he might send his vice presidency going to law school. And throughcentury the first third of the 20th century, the president ial candidate did not choose his running mate. The conventions chose the running mate. They generally chose the running mate in order to balance the ticket either on ideological grounds or geographical rounds. Sometimes you would have a president ial candidate and Vice President ial candidate who disagreed and were on opposite sides on major issues of the day. Sometimes the vice presidency was used as part of a deal to secure the president ial nomination for a candidate. Sometimes a politician from a swing state was chosen as the Vice President ial candidate. 1916, there and were eight Vice President ial candidates. Five were from indiana. Oftentimes, the Vice President ial candidates in the 19th century were undistinguished people. Chester arthur, james garfields Vice President before he succeeded president garfield, before he became Vice President , the highest position he ever held was as the collector of customs in the port of new york. Derek hobart, president mckinleys first Vice President , had never held any Public Office other than state legislator in the state of new jersey. William king, who was Franklin Pierce ands Vice President , did have a lot of experience, but he was very sick when he was chosen to be Vice President. So sick that he resigned from the senate because he could not continue to perform his role in the senate, and he died soon after his election. Being Vice President was not a good career move for somebody in most of the 19th century. Only three 19th century Vice President s were elected to a second term. None after 1836. Although five president s from 1828 to 1900 were elected to a second term, none with the same Vice President. The four Vice President s who succeeded to the presidency in the 19th century, none of them were reelected or elected to their own term as president. The vice presidency was not a good president ial springboard. When Daniel Webster was offered a position on the 1848 ticket with sacra taylor, he refused saying i dont propose to be buried until im dead. [laughter] ofwas not the wisest move the great websters career. He always wanted to be president. Some months later, Zachary Taylor died and Millard Fillmore instead became president. From 1836 when Martin Van Buren was elected as the sitting Vice President to succeed andrew when george h1988 w bush was elected to succeed ronald reagan, no Vice President , no sitting Vice President was ever elected to the presidency. Other than John Breckenridge in 1856, none was nominated to seek the presidency by a major party until Richard Nixon in 1960. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a common joke told about the parents who had two sons. One went off to sea. The other became Vice President. Neither was ever heard from again. [laughter] at the beginning of the 20th century, the vice presidency began to take baby steps forward and towards the executive branch. President harding invited his Vice President , calvin coolidge, to meet with the cabinet. The move was controversial at the time. But Vice President coolidge did cabinet. The party that became something of a tradition. Franklin roosevelt used john garner as a liaison and sent him on foreign trips before they had a falling out during the second term. President roosevelt used his second Vice President , henry wallace, made him the head of Economic Warfare during world war ii. But wallace ran into controversy with members of f. D. R. s cabinet and soon lost that position and was dropped from the 1944 ticket. President roosevelts third Vice President , harry truman, had limited contact with president roosevelt during the 82 days of president trumans vice presidency. In fact, president truman was not told about the Manhattan Project until sundays after he succeeded president roosevelt when one of his advisors took him aside and said mr. President , i think there is something you need to know about. The changes in American Government and Politics Associated with the new deal and world war ii ended up having an effect on the vice presidency. They strengthened the presidency. They weakened the political party. They have the effect of pulling the vice presidency into the executive branch. As expectations of the presidency increased in the nuclear age and cold war, as the president was expected to conduct a more robust Foreign Policy, and as Technology Made foreign travel more possible, Vice President again to be sent Vice President s began to be sent on Diplomatic Missions. They began to take on other tasks in the executive branch. Beginning in 1940, the president to designater who is running mate would be at the convention. The office began to move into the executive branch beginning with the vice presidency of Richard Nixon in 1953. Vice president nixons office was still at the capitol building. But unlike his predecessors, nixon spent almost no time presiding over the senate. He spent most of his time going to meetings in the executive branch. Meeting with president eisenhowers cabinet, taking Foreign Missions for president eisenhower. He would go for a month or two months on foreign trips, doing political work for the president , heading executive branch commissions, and so forth. Vice president nixons followeds essentially the nixon model. Their office moved into the executive office building. They took on more functions in the executive branch. Sharing commissions, making trips for the president , doing political work. Other than Vice President admit, i think all of these people were among the leading political figures of their political generation. The vice presidency became a better president ial springboard and became attracted to able people for that reason. Nixon and Hubert Humphrey were nominated to seek the presidency. Spiro agnew was a front runner for 1976, in gallup polls at least, until he had to resign from office. Even with this growth from nixon to rockefeller, there still were limitations. The primary focus of the vice presidency was on providing a president ial successor. The executive branch work the Vice President s took on tended to be episodic, peripheral. Vice president s were not part of the president s intercircle inner circle. And Vice President s tended to feel underutilized and frustrated with their positions. But president eisenhower wanted to dump Vice President nixon from the ticket in 1956. He suggested to him he might chart his own course and his political future might be brighter if he took a cabinet position. But Vice President nixon had no desire to leave the vice presidency. 1960 whenugust of Vice President nixon was running for president and suggesting a reason people should vote for him instead of senator john kennedy from massachusetts was he had such extensive experience as Vice President , president eisenhower was asked at a press conference if you could name a single idea Vice President nixon had contributed to the administration. President eisenhower got irritated and said i dont know, if you give me a week i might think of at the first president ial debate, Vice President nixon was asked about this because more than a week and path and the president had not come forward and suggested any ideas. Lyndon johnson said president kennedy treated him well but he said he hated every minute that was Vice President. Every time he was in president kennedys presidency felt he was a raven hovering around his head. Hubert humphrey, perhaps because president johnson had a miserable time as Vice President , president johnson make sure that Vice President humphrey had a miserable time as a Vice President. [laughter] after Vice President humphrey expressed early on disagreement or different views about how the United States should handle matters in vietnam, president johnson stopped inviting him to meetings to discuss vietnam. Some of you may recall there was a political satirist who wrote a song called whatever became of you hubert, and my favorite line was something like, second fiddle is the hard part i know, when they dont even give you a bow. President nixon detested spiro agnew. Early on there would be conferences where president nixon would be talking to bob haldeman and John Ehrlichman and they would say agnew wants to meet with you. President nixon would say, the president does not meet with the Vice President , that is not how it works. That is not part of the deal. President fords nine months as Vice President were probably the least happy time of his public service. He took on some Commission Work in the executive branch. He did some legislative liaison, but he spent much of his time traveling around the country try to help republican candidates who are being hurt by the watergate scandal, and is staying as far away from it as he could. Then when he designated Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President , president ford really wanted to try to do something with the vice presidency. He liked Nelson Rockefeller, he admired his ability, he wanted to make use of them, you want to make Vice President rockefellers staff feel welcome. He felt that the ford Vice President ial step had not been included in he wanted to make sure that was not repeated. Yet it did not work out that way. At governor rockefellers request, president ford made Vice President rockefeller the head of the domestic consul. He felt if he was the head of the domestic consul came up he would be to Domestic Affairs what Henry Kissinger was to Foreign Policy. But they were all sorts of problems. Domestic cabinet officials did not want to report to the president to the Vice President. Chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld felt that if Henry Kissinger was running Foreign Policy and Nelson Rockefeller was running domestic policy, what did it leave for the president . There are other problems for the staff, they had to report through the regular channels and not just to the Vice President. So, the whole experiment of having the Vice President running it did not work. Vice president rockefeller, notwithstanding the Good Relationship between him and president ford, he was not consulted on many important matters and ultimately he was dropped from the ticket in 1976. The last time a Vice President has not been asked to run for reelection or election with the president. It is worth pausing to think about, why didnt be vice presidency really develop, as it later did, under the ford, rockefeller regime . Im convinced president ford wanted it to happen. I think it did not happen then in part because they started off with the wrong vision of the office. Vice president rockefellers idea was that he could be powerful if he had a particular piece of the government to run. And yet by taking that view of the office, he really ended up buying a bunch of problems for himself. He created competition with the president staff. He put the president in a position where if the Vice President took an action that the president was not comfortable with, it created an awful awkwardness for the president. I think a second reason that the vice presidency did not develop during the Ford Administration was that Vice President rockefeller really was not cut out to be number two. He was an able person but you never been a number two, he was governor of new york for 14 years and he was not suited by his experience or his temperament to be a follower. Third, the politics between the two of them were wrong. Although they were personally compatible, politically, he was not compatible with president ford on many major initiatives. At a time when president ford was trying to cut the deficit and rein in spending, Vice President rockefeller was proposing ambitious spending proposals. And then on top of that, president ford was challenged in the republican primaries in 1976 by governor reagan, the conservatives in the Republican Party had no use for Vice President rockefeller, going way back to the 1964 campaign. So Vice President rockefeller became a serious political liability for the president. And then on top of that there was conflict between the Vice President and the president s staff. Vice president rockefeller became convinced the chiefs of staff Donald Rumsfeld and dick cheney route to get him. When the Vice President s residence was opened in 1975 or 1976, Vice President rockefeller had a series of parties to introduce people to the new Vice President s residents and a supposedly everyone in town was invited to one of those parties except for the chief of staff, dick cheney. Than the other problem that before administration had was that Vice President rockefeller was not there for the first four months of the board administration. He was undergoing confirmation proceedings before the house and the senate, so he was not able to participate at the ground floor of the planning in the early stages of the sword of the Ford Administration. By the time he came into the administration, relationships had already been formed, patterns have been set, it was too late. The change in the vice presidency really came with jimmy carter and Walter Mondale in 1977 and this was the creation of what i call the white house vice presidency governor carter thought of himself as a fiduciary for the american people. As a businessman, he thought the vice presidency had been a wasted asset, that it was a shame to have a senior official and not to be putting into use. He also thought it was immoral for a Vice President not to be engaged and prepared. He was haunted by the experience of president truman not having been included in discussions during the roosevelt presidency. Governor carter security nomination early on, actually it was early june of 1976, about five weeks before the democratic convention, and he took the selection of a running mate seriously. He had his closest confidant vet Vice President ial candidates. He decided he needed to run with a senator or congressman to balance off his own lack of experience in the federal government. Although he initially had reservations about Walter Mondale, thought he was too liberal, was bothered by the fact that mondale had pulled out early from the president ial race when they met in early july about eight days before the democratic convention, they hit it off. Carter became very impressed with mondale and he thought mondale had the experience and the resources that carter needed. He knew his way around the district of columbia, use popular in congress, he was popular with liberals. And governor carter took an inclusive approach to mondale and his campaign team, even during the campaign. In the 1976 president ial campaign, president ford and governor carter agreed to debate and they invented for the first time the institution of a Vice President ial debate, which we have had in every president ial election since except for 1980. In the Vice President ial debate, mondale was deemed to have done much better than senator bob dole. Afterwards, carters Campaign Manager says mondale added about 3 to carters ticket and carter in his speeches in the closing few weeks of the campaign almost invariably mentioned mondale as an asset and a signal of the kind of decisionmaking he was capable of. Then during the president ial transition, for the first time in history, carter involved mondale the transition. Involve them in meetings, and setting the policy for the administration and so forth. He went out of his way to signal that mondale would be an important part of the administration. Given that he had picked a running mate we was personally compatible with, given that he picked a running mate who he felt ideologically compatible with, given he picked someone who he thought could add needed resources to his administration, and given he picked someone who he thought was able and a leader in a follower, i think the other thing that was critical was the vision of the vice presidency that Vice President mondale came up with. It was really about 180 degrees from the vision that Nelson Rockefeller had at. Whereas Vice President rockefellers view was everything about the vice presidency turned on the fact that the Vice President was the first president ial successor. What Vice President mondale tragedy was deemphasize the fact what Vice President mondale tried to do was the emphasize the fact that he was the first president ial successor and think about ways he can make the vice presidency and ongoing substantive position which was not focused on providing a successor to the president but in helping the president succeed. And thats that really changed the psychology between the relationship between the president and the Vice President and more importantly between the president s staff and the Vice President. Instead of thinking a part of the government that he would run and all, he wanted simply to be a general advisor and troubleshooter. He would advise the president on matters across the board and would take up assignments for the president , but he did not want to own anything. He thought that if he owned a part of the program, that he would alienate whoever was giving up that part of the program. President s tended to give Vice President relatively trivial matters to be in charge of because the consequences of taking them away or reduced. He was afraid that if he took ongoing assignments, that would take him away, divert his time and attention from advising the president and from helping the president on matters that were central to the presidency. In order for the vice presidency to succeed in this way, Vice President mondale and president carter concluded that the Vice President needed to have a new set of resources. He needed to have access to the president. He needed to have the same information that the president had, including the National Security briefings. He needed to be part of the decisionmaking process and the staff needed to be part of the decisionmaking process. He needed to have adequate support from the Vice President ial staff and from the president ial staff so that they would respond to his request. And they need to have the president s of visible and consistent support. President carter agreed to everything that Vice President mondale asked. They developed a pattern of having a weekly private lunch. President carter directed that Vice President mondale would get every document that he got. He directed that Vice President mondale had the right to come into the oval office whenever he wanted without an invitation. He could attend any meeting of the president s schedule. He invited members of the staff to the domestic arts. Then he went beyond it. He gave Vice President mondale things he did not ask for. For the first time he gave the Vice President and office in the west wing of the white house. He sent over a floor plan of the west wing and he said, pick any office you want other than the oval office. Then he also told his staff two things. He said you should always treat a request from the Vice President as if it is a request from the president , and if anybody ever undercuts the Vice President , they will lose their job. Well, the Carter Mondale term brought the Vice President for the first time into the white house, both physically and into the inner circle of the president ial decisionmaking. Because president carter was seeing the value Vice President mondale, others about you vice others valued Vice President mondale. Other people want to deal with the Vice President because they knew he had access, they knew he had influenced with the president. They knew that if they could convince the Vice President , they had a better chance of convincing the president. Because other people dont with the Vice President in this manner, the Vice President s value to the president increase as well. President s adopted a very similar model. All of the Vice President s from bush on have followed essentially the model that president carter in Vice President mondale established. Vice president bush, after having competed with president reagan, after being chosen despite the fact that the reagans had misgivings about them, developed a Good Relationship with president reagan. After the assassination attempt on president reagans life, Vice President bush was viewed as having handled himself with the greatest sensitivity and confidence. He took on a number of important Diplomatic Missions for the president. He became a close president ial advisor. He really subordinated his ambitions, especially during the first term to the president , and throughout the ministration was extremely loyal to the president. When he became president , he set up the same kind of relationship with Vice President dan quayle. Vice president quayle met with the president every day for his National Security small meeting, than for small meeting with the chief of staff. He had the weekly lunch. He served as a valuable legislative and political advisor and operator for president bush. Al gore became president clintons closest adviser for most of his presidency. In addition, took on significant portfolios during the clinton presidency. He was in charge of environment, telecommunications. He was in charge of reinventing government, which was an initiative which was very important to president clinton. He chaired a commission with the Prime Minister of prussia at a time when there was concern that Boris Yeltsin was unstable. It was thought that it was important to develop relations at other levels. The commission became the place where a lot of business with the soviet union was done. Vice president cheney started off his term with some unique advantages. Unlike the other Vice President s during his. The he had served in major positions in the executive branch under president ford, secretary of defense under the first president bush, in the house of representatives during the reagan presidency. In addition, yet had a close relationship with president bush that developed both because he knew and had worked with the second president bushs father but also that he chaired the Vice President ial selection and participated and share the transition. After 9 11, Vice President cheney became even more influential. Played a leading role in the Bush Administration with respect to the war on terror, economic matters. His power declined during the second term for a variety of reasons, but throughout his two terms he was somebody who was among the people that the president listen to. And a Vice President biden has only continue the pattern and sustained a level of influence for two terms which is really unprecedented in our history. At the beginning of the administration was charged with implementing the recovery act, the disengagement from iraq. He later negotiated there is budget deals with senator mcconnell. He has continued to be a close advisor to the president , taken on numerous Diplomatic Missions for the president. All of these Vice President s during this time, from mondale to biden, have really function as acrosstheboard president ial advisers and troubleshooters. Some have emphasized some activities, diplomacy of others have emphasized other activities, perhaps legislative work. But they have all taken on rules to help the president on an ongoing basis. Let me suggest enclosing some lessons from this history. The first lesson i think is the vice presidency now matters. The vice presidency is an ongoing position of significance. It is not primarily a residential successor, although it serves the function, but it is an ongoing position of importance. And across the Board Advisor with political skills. Somebody who can give the president help the president needs. It provides the president with an invaluable asset to make his or her administration succeed. Second, because of the significance of the vice presidency, it now matters who is the Vice President and who the Vice President ial candidates are. I have not talked about Vice President ial selection, in that as part of the National Conversation now. But who is selected as the Vice President ial running mate is enormously important now and the factors that ought to be considered art whether or not they are somebody who has leadership ability to be president , not someday, but now. Whether they can enhance the administration by the quality that they would bring to it, not all of the Political Considerations that are talked about. Third, the change in the vice presidency is, i think, institutional, and during, and constitutional in a sense. What is significant about this is that the change in the vice presidency really has not depended on any change in constitutional amendment in recent times or any change in statutory law. There has been a change in behavior. It has been an example of establishing behaviors during the Carter Mondale administration largely, and other administrations copping them and approving on them, strengthening them. Fourth, that in order to improve institutions the way the vice presidency has been improved, leadership matters. It is not enough to want to prove something, it is also critical that you really come to understand the institution that you are trying to improve, that you have a workable vision of the institution, that the implementation process of that vision be done sensitively and successfully, and that it be transmitted to successors. And finally, i would say that the story that i would tell of the modern vice presidency, and really the story of my book, is really an optimistic one. Because if you can take the office which is been the most disparaged office in our history and at a time when many of our institutions are suffering and are losing public confidence, if this office can improve and become significant, really, for the first time in our history as it has over the last 40 years, then perhaps there is some hope that we can turn some of our other institutions into a way that is more pleasing to us and so that they better serve our needs. I would be happy to take any questions or hear any thoughts that people have. There is a microphone at the back. What happens the Vice President after they leave office . Mr. Goldstein the question was, what happens to Vice President after they leave office . It depends on each person. Each person is a different story. Vice president mondale lost in 1980, practiced law and ran for president. Vice president bush became president. Vice president quayle tried twice to run for president unsuccessfully. Vice president gore lost the presidency. He won a nobel prize. Vice president cheney left office and became a public critic of the administration and remained a vocal and visible in the national discourse. So, i think they have done different things. Some defeated Vice President ial candidates became chief justice. Paul ryan became speaker of the house. And muskie became secretary of state. It has been a range and many have had further distinguished careers. My question deals with some of the things you mentioned about the 25th amendment in chapter 13. I would like you to respond to what i have heard, to criticisms of the 25th amendment. One cannot the second section of it allows for having a president and Vice President , neither of whom are elected, which of course has happened. But also in section four, that some critics would say in spite of this if i can quote one of your sentences here when a president remains unconscious, the cabinet will act only under clear circumstances. Some critics will say it is unwise to put into the constitution a way for the Vice President of the cabinet, and congress, to overthrow a president. If you could respond to those to criticisms please . Mr. Goldstein the 25th amendment section two is a provision that says where there is a Vice President ial vacancy for any reason that the president can nominate a Vice President and the Vice President takes office by confirmation by the house and the senate. During the Ford Administration, of course president for became Vice President to the 25th amendment and Vice President rockefeller became Vice President to the 25th amendment and the criticism was neither had run in the national election. I think that is certainly true, but by the same token they both received an awful lot of scrutiny. The theory behind the 25th amendment is that the president is entitled to choose somebody who reflects his or her ideology. So the theory was and many liberal democrats ordered for Vice President for on the theory that even though they disagreed with him politically, they thought that he was his views were consistent on most issues with president nixon so he reflected the nixon election of 1972. Similarly, his appointment of rockefeller then reflects the same trend. But the idea is that senators and the congressman serve as a surrogate for the electorate. It is hard to come up with a perfect system. The alternative would be to have special elections, and that has a whole host of problems. I think most people thought the 25th amendment in 1973 1974 worked quite well because given that you had a democratic speaker at the time and you had president nixon facing impeachment, that it would have been more difficult to remove a president if you could not put in a Vice President was from the same party. In respect to section four, Section Three provides a system whereby the president can voluntarily turn power over the Vice President if the president is disabled. Section four deals with the situation where the president is disabled, the Vice President can act as president until the president is able to return to power. Sure, there is a risk of the Vice President and cabinet to run the president out. On the other hand, you need to have some system. Section four was viewed as putting more of a check on the Vice President by having the cabinet participate in the process. Before then, some people thought the Vice President would have the unilateral power to declare the president s disability. President eisenhower, who took this seriously, a letter to Vice President nixon and said if ever i become disabled to a point where i cannot declare my own disability, it is your decision as to whether or not im disabled, i will retain the right to come back when i think i am able again. But if a group of doctors say im not able, then you should assume the presidency including moving into the white house. In some ways i think joining the Vice President with the president s cabinet, people the president has appointed to office, should give the president a fair amount of security. It is hard to come up with a perfect system. At one point, one has to rely on people to act as patriots in use good judgment and hopefully that is what will happen. Welcome to ann arbor. My question deals with the cost of making a questionable choice for Vice President. Im thinking really of john mccain. With a very honorable, heroic military career, a long, dedicated, determined at legislative career, picking someone like sarah palin, who really was a very lightweight in the political world. I just wonder if you think that is going to be held against mccains record or seen as a crazy blip in his career . Mr. Goldstein it is clearly part of his biography and i think it has been something he has been criticized for. I think that he thought that were to have a chance for election, his advisers apparently told him he needed to pick a woman. He really very much want to pick senator lieberman as his running mate apparently, but he became convinced they could get lieberman, and a second that a Mccain Lieberman ticket would lose. He thought governor palin might help them energize the base of the Republican Party, attract women to vote who were disgruntled because they felt senator clinton had been mistreated by the Democratic Party and might then be attracted to the palin candidacy. I think it was a miscalculation by senator mccain and bad politics as well. Ultimately the best Politics Institute somebody who people can visualize serving as president. If you cannot visualize somebody sitting in the oval office, then it is likely to hurt. It might hurt only at the margins, but other way in which it hurts, and i think anyway that political scientists are not very good at measuring, is that it informs part of our opinion of the selector. When People Choose a running mate, particularly if they are new, when they choose their running mate, this is their first president ial decision. If they choose somebody who is not viewed as president ial, it sends a message about their values, about their decisionmaking that can be troubling. I think it was a mistake on his part. The reason why president ial candidates might not choose people who are unqualified in the future, including the Vice President ial debate in the fact it is hard to hide a Vice President ial candidate these days. Thank you for coming. That was excellent going to be my question so im glad added backup question. Obviously where in an Election Year this year, one might probably no one has seen. With Hillary Clinton probably going to be getting the democratic nomination, i kind of have sort of an idea of who she might take as her Vice President ial pick, probably someone in washington. Im really curious you think donald trump is going to choose as his Vice President ial pick. You think hes going to choose someone from the inside, someone with senate or congressional experience, to sort of make up for his and i dont want to be offensive, lack of knowledge. Mr. Goldstein i do not have a clue who he is going to pick. [laughter] mr. Goldstein if you went back on may 5 on any Election Year and try to predict the Vice President of candidate would be, maybe you would all be better predictors than i would be but i would be but ill be wrong virtually every time. It is hard to predict for a number of reasons. One is you do not know in the context is one to beat when this selection is going to be made. It will probably be made in july before the convention. We do not know what the situation will be. To what extent will the Republican Party be disunified . What will mr. Trumps options be . What will he think are his knees and to what extent can he fulfill those needs by picking one of the options . It is right difficult to figure it out. He has said, as you point out, he is likely to take someone who is a politician. A pattern that has really developed is that political outsiders, governors, or a governor like general eisenhower, always take washington insiders. The last time we had to governors run together was 1948. Since then they have always been someone who assert in congress who had served in congress or the executive branch. So one would expect that mr. Trump would follow that pattern. That would also be a way of bringing a National Security credential onto the ticket. One of the difficulties he has is there was one member of the senate who endorsed his candidacy and typically members of the house representative ryan was a rare choice, but representatives are usually not taken. When they are taken it tends to, with the exception of the ryan selection, it tends to indicate the ticket is a weaker ticket and you cannot get a senator or a governor. To go back to the short answer, i do not have a clue. [laughter] mr. Goldstein thank you very much. [applause] im a history above. I do enjoy seeing the fabric of our country and bowel how things work and how they are made. I had no idea they did history. With American History tv, it gives you that perspective. Monday, the 30yearold Electronic Communications privacy act were cursed government to get a warrant to search email that is less than 180 days old, written before most americans used email and cloud storage. Congress now wants to extend protection to those forms of personal data. The house passed the email privacy act in april and the senate is now considering legislation. The legislative counsel for the aclu and brian porter have different perspectives on the legislation. They are joined by a Technology Reporter for the morning consol