Obama should end the Imperial Vice Presidency

It started innocently with Jimmy Carter, who gave his Vice President, Walter Mondale, a much larger role to play in his Adminstration than any before him:

Under Carter, Mondale traveled extensively throughout the nation and the world advocating the administration's foreign policy. Mondale was the first vice president to have an office in the White House, and established the concept of "activist Vice President". He expanded the vice president's role from that of figurehead to presidential adviser, full-time participant, and troubleshooter for the administration. Subsequent vice presidents have followed this model in the administrations in which they serve. Mondale established the tradition of weekly lunches with the president, which continues to this day.

Continued...

Ronald Reagan maintained his Vice President, George HW Bush, in the role of Presidential partner:

The Bushes attended a large number of public and ceremonial events in their positions, including many state funerals... Mrs. Bush found the funerals largely beneficial, saying, "George met with many current or future heads of state at the funerals he attended, enabling him to forge personal relationships that were important to President Reagan." As the President of the Senate, Bush stayed in contact with members of Congress, and kept the president informed on occurrences on Capitol Hill.

George HW Bush's Vice President, Dan Quayle, was another matter entirely:

President Bush named Quayle head of the Council on Competitiveness. In contrast with his two immediate successors, Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney, Quayle had a limited role in policymaking.

Throughout his time as Vice President, Quayle was widely ridiculed in the media and by many in the general public, in both the USA and overseas, as an intellectual lightweight.

For example, Quayle received the satirical Ig Nobel Prize for "demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education" in 1991. Critics facetiously remarked that Quayle was a good reason for even Bush's critics to pray for Bush's health and that he was the only Vice President who made his President "impeachment-proof."

And then, there was Bill Clinton's Al Gore:

As Vice President, Gore promoted the development of what he referred to as the Information Superhighway.
[snip]
One of Gore's major works as Vice President was the National Performance Review, which pointed out waste, fraud, and other abuse in the federal government and stressed the need for cutting the size of the bureaucracy and the number of regulations. Gore stated that the National Performance Review later helped guide President Clinton when he down-sized the federal government.

And now we have the Imperial Vice President himself, Dick Cheney:

Both supporters and detractors of Cheney regard him as a shrewd and knowledgeable politician who knows the functions and intricacies of the federal government. A sign of Cheney's active policy-making role was House Speaker Dennis Hastert's provision of an office near the House floor for Cheney in addition to his office in the West Wing, his ceremonial office in the Old Executive Office Building, and his Senate offices (one in the Dirksen Senate Office Building and another off the floor of the Senate).

Cheney has actively promoted an expansion of the powers of the presidency, saying that the Bush administration’s challenges to the laws which Congress passed after Vietnam and Watergate to contain and oversee the executive branch—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Presidential Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the War Powers Resolution—are, in Cheney's words, "a restoration, if you will, of the power and authority of the president."

In June of 2007, the Washington Post summarized Cheney’s vice presidency in a Pulitzer Prize-winning four-part series, based in part on interviews with former administration officials. The articles characterized Cheney not as a "shadow" president, but as someone who usually has the last words of counsel to the president on policies, which in many cases would reshape the powers of the presidency. When former vice president Dan Quayle suggested to Cheney that the office was largely ceremonial, Cheney reportedly replied, "I have a different understanding with the president."

The history is clear: The Vice Presidency has grown in its accumulated power exponentially over the last three decades -- benignly at first -- to the point of cancerous excess.

The Obama Administration should consider changing that historically anomalous fact by reducing the inherent power of the office to its Consitutitional minimum: preside over the Senate, cast tie-breaking votes, assume the Presidency if the President cannot perform its duties.

But here I quote former Vice President John Adams in a letter to his wife Abigail:

"My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

So I propose a simple solution: Give the Vice President a second, honest, day job.

The persons who will be considered for the Vice Presidency will already be known as accomplished, capable, government leaders. They will bring the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to perform brilliantly in some other role.

Surely, any person appropriate for the Vice Presidency will be capable of performing as a cabinet-level officer AND occasionally casting a vote in the Senate. (Although given the likelihood of large Democratic gains in the Senate, I suspect that will be a rare occurrance.)

In the poll below, I offer a few suggestions, but it's the idea that I'm most interested. Have fun in the comments!