How is the Vice President Elected?

In last night’s Democratic debate the question was posed:

Governor Cuomo, on elder statesman in your party, has come forward with a suggestion. He has said, “Look, fight it to the end. Let every vote be counted. You can test every delegate. Go at each other right till the end. Don’t give an inch to one another. But pledge now that whichever one of you wins this contest, you’ll take the other as your running mate, and that the other one will agree, if they lose, to take second place on the ticket.”

So I put the question to both of you: Why not?

It may interest international readers to know that originally the runner up to the Presidential election was given the office of Vice President. I always make a disclaimer that Wikipedia is not necessarily accurate, but what else is a amateur blogger supposed to cite when writing at 10:30 at night. So here is the Wikipedia info for all those who are curious:

Under the original terms of the Constitution, the members of the U.S. Electoral College voted only for office of president rather than for both president and vice president. Each elector was allowed to vote for two people for the top office. The person receiving the greatest number of votes (provided that such a number was a majority of electors) would be president, while the individual who received the next largest number of votes became vice president.

The original plan, however, did not foresee the development of political parties and their adversarial role in the government. In the election of 1796, for instance, Federalist John Adams came in first, and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second. Thus, the president and vice president were from opposing parties. Predictably, Adams and Jefferson clashed over issues such as states’ rights and foreign policy.

As this election shows even candidates from the same party whose policies are strikingly similar though whose philosophies at achieving those policies may differ, make this also an unforeseen difficulty.

This tumultuous affair led to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, which directed the electors to use separate ballots to vote for the president and vice president. While this solved the problem at hand, it ultimately had the effect of lowering the prestige of the vice presidency, as the office was no longer for the leading challenger for the presidency.

If no vice presidential candidate receives an Electoral College majority; The United States Constitution states that the Senate selects the Vice President. This is a curious anomaly since the sitting Vice President is also President of the Senate and would be called upon to break a tie vote, possibly for himself or his successor. The election of 1836 is the only election so far where the office of the Vice President has been decided by the Senate. During the campaign, President Martin Van Buren’s running mate Richard Mentor Johnson was accused of having lived with a black woman. Virginia’s 23 electors, who were pledged to Van Buren and Johnson, refused to vote for Johnson (but still voted for Van Buren). The election went to the Senate, where Johnson was elected, 33-17.

So there you have it. Mario Cuomo’s idea has already been exercised and quite frankly it’s not a good one.