The "Washington Post" this week ran an excellent series on just how powerful VP Cheney is, and some of the reporting was simply startling regarding what he has been able to accomplish. For instance, Cheney has made personal calls to particular agencies that are impeding the interests of particular supporters, such as energy or ranching concerns. For all the talk about "nonpartisan bureaucrats making impersonal decisions," reality dictates otherwise. For the typical bureaucrat, coming to work one day and finding the vice-president on the other end of the phone line knocks right out any thoughts of nonpartisan and impersonal decisions.
Why is he so powerful? Some attribute it to his experience working inside the Executive Branch--from his time in Nixon's EEOC, to his time as Ford's Chief of Staff, to his time as Bush 41's Secretary of Defense--he knows the trigger points to getting things done. He is well aware of the precious commodity of time for any administration, and what is the best time to get things done to the worst time (such as the last 18 months of a term limited president). Others claim that it is because Cheney has no future political aspirations once he has left the White House. It is clear that in a president's second term, most VP's are already "measuring the drapes" in the Oval Office. There is tension between staff loyal to the president and staff hoping to parlay a VP win into better offices closer to the president (you measure power inside the White House by proximity to the president--not necessarily job title). Cheney has short circuited that problem by stating at the outset when asked to run with Governor Bush in 2000 that this would be his last. And finally, some claim that he is so powerful because he knows much more than his boss. When Governor Bush assembled his "superstars" after the Supreme Court handed him the victory in December 2000, he claimed that, as any smart CEO knows, you assemble a crack team of advisers and then delegate to them. It is clear that at some point--probably in 2000--Bush and Cheney sat alone in a room and agreed upon a vision. And the new president agreed to give the VP a wide berth in pursuit of the vision. And the VP? He agreed to serve as the lightning rod, and like any good lieutenant, he would divert fire away from his boss.
All of these are compelling reasons, and each certainly contribute to Cheney's power. But by focusing only on Cheney, we miss the big picture of power in the Executive Branch. As the president has gained in power, so has the VP. And this story is about the accretion of power, something that continues to be overlooked. Cheney stands on the backs of those who came before him. And one VP that often gets overlooked is Dan Quayle, another powerful VP who served capably another President Bush. Quayle was powerful because his talents were widely overlooked. Most, like this recent article that appeared in The Independent of UK: Other vice-presidents, such as Dan Quayle, remained a laughing stock through their tenure. As they say, laughing all the way to the bank.
Quayle's power came from a Council he headed named the Council on Competitiveness, or more informally, The Quayle Council (hereafter QC). The QC came to be when the new Bush administration in 1989 clashed heads with a Democratic Congress that was fed up with eight years of secrecy and obstruction from the Reagan administration. In particular, the Congress wanted to limit the influence that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) had over regulatory affairs. The Reagan administration had quickly positioned OIRA as the enforcer of the will of the administration. They did it via two powerful executive orders that required agencies to consider the cost and benefits of any regulation that they wrote. If they could not justify the costs (of $100 million/year to the economy) then they either figured out a way to make it work or scrap it. Further, all regulatory agencies were required to let OIRA know all the regulations that they may work on for the coming year (pre-planning review). The Congress had attempted to get information on just how OIRA was exerting influence and over whom, and never to satisfaction. Thus when the new Bush administration took over, the Congress was going to make sure that a process was put in place that would allow oversight of the rulemaking process. When the Bush administration balked, the Congress refused to appropriate OIRA or to appoint someone to head it up--in a sense, it gelded OIRA. Rather than cave in, the Bush administration created an entity that the Vice President would head that would take over for OIRA. The Council on Competitiveness would review "not only regulations that [were] published for notice and comment, but also strategy statements, guidelines, policy manuals, grant and loan procedures, Advance Notices of Proposed Rule Making, press releases, and other documents announcing or implementing regulatory policy that affects the public."
The QC, with the VP spearheading the drive, was very effective in protecting business interests close to the President. For instance, the QC worked wonders in diluting the strength of the Clean Air Act Amendments, even though the Congress and the head of the EPA resisted. By bringing the EPA director into close contact with the VP, and then the President, the director realized that playing ball with the President was a wiser career move than playing ball with the Congress (for a thorough examination of this issue, see Chapter Five of my dissertation, pp. 129-134).
So once again, while this topic of a VP to end all VP's is popular with the press, take a moment and look at the road that led to that power. You will find that it transcends presidencies and will likely extend well into the future.
