THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH| 313pro tempore of the Senate, who in turn typically gives the duty to a more junior
member. The vice president also has the power to cast tie-breaking votes in the
Senate. As mentioned earlier, the vice president’s other formal responsibility
is to become president if the current president dies, becomes incapacitated,
resigns, or is impeached. Of the 44 people who have become president, nine
were vice presidents who became president in midterm.
These rather limited offi cia l duties of the vice president pa le in compa rison to
the infl uentia l role played by recent vice presidents. Vice President Dick Cheney,
who served with President George W. Bush, exerted a signifi cant infl uence over
many policy decisions, including the rights of terror suspects, tax and spend-
ing policy, environmental decisions, and the writing of new government regula-
tions.^51 Many critics claimed that Cheney had too much power, and some even
described him as a co-president.^52
Although Cheney’s level of infl uence was unique, other recent vice presidents
have also had real power. For example, Vice President Al Gore was an important
adviser to President Bill Clinton. And Barack Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden,
appears to play an important role, attending all signifi cant meetings and serving
as the last person the president consults before making a decision.
The vice president’s role as a senior adviser and trusted confi dante is a recent
development. Before this change, vice presidents were often chosen to provide
political or regional balance to a presidential candidate’s electoral appeal. For
example, in 1952 Dwight Eisenhower chose then-senator Richard Nixon as his
vice president in order to appeal to conservative groups in the Republican Party
(but then Eisenhower excluded Nixon from many meetings once in offi ce). The
expansion of the federal government beginning in the 1960s appears to have led
recent presidents to look beyond political or regional factors when choosing a vice
president to fi nd a like-minded individual who can help them manage the bureau-
cracy and achieve their policy goals. Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden refl ected
these priorities, as Biden’s foreign policy expertise was expected to off set Obama’s
relative inexperience in this area.
The President’s Cabinet
The president’s Cabinet is composed of the heads of the 15 executive depart-
ments in the federal government, along with other appointees given cabinet
rank by the president. Nuts and Bolts 10.4 lists the cabinet positions. The cabi-
net members’ principal job is to be the frontline implementers of the president’s
agenda in their executive departments. As we discuss in more detail in Chapter 11,
they monitor the actions of the lower-level bureaucrats who retain their jobs
regardless of who is president and who are not necessarily sympathetic to the
president’s priorities.
Like other presidential appointees, cabinet members are chosen for a combina-
tion of loyalty to the president and expertise. Barack Obama’s secretary of trans-
portation, Ray LaHood, a former moderate Republican congressman, had been on
the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee while serving in the House of
Representatives, so he had a good working knowledge of federal transportation
programs. And Secretary of Energy Steven Chu was a Nobel Prize–winning
physicist who had directed a major energy research laboratory.
Cabinet The group of 15 executive
department heads who implement
the president’s agenda in their
respective positions.TODAY, VICE PRESIDENTS ARE MORE
infl uential than they were in the
past. President Obama drew on
Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign
policy expertise and entrusted
him with numerous important
initiatives.