Vice President Biden discloses records to agencies that Cheney often rebuffed

Vice President Joe Biden has been disclosing records and cooperating with federal agencies that Dick Cheney often rebuffed.

Biden’s actions are consistent with his comments on the campaign trail, where he criticized then-Vice President Cheney for not providing the information. And Biden seems to be putting an end to the George W. Bush administration’s assertion that the vice president is not solely part of the executive branch. 

{mosads}“Vice President Cheney was more comfortable behind the scenes and working the levers of power, while Vice President Biden is much more of an outside figure,” said Joel Goldstein, a constitutional law professor and vice presidency expert at St. Louis University. “I think Vice President Cheney often used the constitutional vagueness of the position to avoid accountability. One of the hallmarks of the Biden vice presidency has been its transparency.” 

Many experts on the vice presidency believe it’s a return to what has been standard practice for the office. 

Cheney was often criticized for his claim that the vice presidency was a part of the both the legislative and executive branches of government. The vice president presides over the Senate and can cast a tie-breaking vote on legislation in the upper chamber if need be. That role, along with receiving a paycheck from the Senate, served as Cheney’s evidence that he was also part of the legislative branch. 

But a spokeswoman for Biden said when President Jimmy Carter reorganized the executive office of the president in 1977, his reorganization plan specifically included the vice president’s office in the executive branch. 

“That plan has never been superseded, although Vice President Cheney voiced his personal disagreement with it,” said Elizabeth Alexander, Biden’s press secretary. “Vice President Biden and his office have voluntarily complied with all regulations governing the executive office of the president, consistent with the practice of all modern administrations except the last.”

On the 2008 campaign trail, the then-Delaware senator would blast Cheney’s secrecy. In the vice presidential debate, Biden also went after the theory that the vice president is part of both the legislative and executive branch. 

“The idea he’s part of the legislative branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive — and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous,” Biden said in the debate. 

A spokesman for Cheney declined to comment. Others said his stand against disclosure was a fight on principle to protect the executive branch. 

“In Cheney’s case, I am sure he felt that for many, many years that Congress had put undue restrictions on the executive branch,” said David Rivkin, once an aide to former Vice Presidents George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle. “I don’t buy it was done for sinister reasons, to hide something. No, it was done to make a point and it is a valuable and important point.” 

Biden has reversed course from Cheney in many respects.

For example, his office has filed reports with the Office of Government Ethics detailing staff trips paid for by outside sponsors. So far, only one of his aides, Moises Vela, his director of administration, has taken paid trips — just two, valued at about $1,000 overall — from the County District Clerks Association of Texas and the Hispanic Bar Association, respectively, according to records.

Though insignificant in its content, by reporting the information, Biden has made a significant shift from the prior administration. 

Cheney’s office would not file travel reports but would instead send letters saying the vice president did not have to report because he was not the head of an executive agency. Aides, including David Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff, would cite court precedent and Justice Department legal opinions as far back as the Kennedy administration to make their case. 

Rivkin said he was not surprised by Biden’s changes from his forerunner. But he said the shift in practice does not defeat Cheney’s legal arguments. 

“It doesn’t undermine the underlying reality, despite the pooh-poohing of it, that the vice president occupies a unique constitutional perch. He clearly exercises some legislative duties,” Rivkin, now a partner at Baker Hostetler, said. 

Another change: Alexander confirmed her office will provide staff information to the Office of Personnel Management when it publishes the Plum Book, a listing of government jobs. Cheney refused, saying his office had duties in both the legislative and executive branches. 

Elsewhere in the federal government, others are breathing a sigh of relief. 

Cheney declined to provide records to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), the agency that oversees the government’s classification program. He reportedly also sought to abolish the ISOO.

But the current director of ISOO said his agency has an “excellent working relationship” with Biden’s office, compared to that of his predecessor. 

“I don’t think anybody needs an imagination to know there was a strained relationship between our office and the vice president’s office in the last administration,” said William J. Bosanko, director of the ISOO. 

Bosanko confirmed that Biden is providing information to his office, which will be compiled into a report to the president and released to the public later this year. Bosanko, with ISOO since 1998 and a deputy to J. William Leonard, the past director who clashed with Cheney’s aides, said he appreciated the direction by the new administration.

“They reached out proactively to us and we have been working with them since,” Bosanko said.