Palin won’t say whether veep is an executive post

Vice President Dick Cheney has said his office only partially belongs to the executive branch. Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden disagrees and Republican rival Sarah Palin isn’t saying.

Sen. Biden (Del.) believes the office he is seeking is solely in  the executive branch, according to his staff. But aides to Alaska Gov. Palin did not answer the question.

{mosads}“Unlike Dick Cheney, Joe Biden won’t have to create a full employment plan for lawyers and scholars to clear up something that was unquestioned for about 200 years. The vice president is part of the executive branch, period. End of story,” said Biden spokesman David Wade.

In turn, a spokesman for the Republican presidential campaign did not answer the question. Instead, he e-mailed remarks Palin gave at a campaign rally in Golden, Colo., on Monday.

Palin did not say what branch of government she believes the vice president’s office is part of in those remarks. Instead, Palin said she and Republican presidential nominee John McCain had discussed what responsibilities she would take on as his second-in-command.

“My mission is going to be energy, security and government reform and another thing near and dear to my heart: It’s going to be helping families who have special needs and children with special needs,” said Palin.

A Cheney spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

Cheney has argued that his office is not fully part of the executive branch or the legislative branch, but instead part of both.

Aides to Cheney have used that argument at times to avoid disclosure of certain records, such as documents detailing privately paid travel taken by officials, and releasing names of the office’s employees to the federal directory known as the Plum Book. Wade said Biden would disclose those records.

“He will end the Cheney era of secrecy in the vice presidency and transparency, transparency, transparency will be the new mantra. This will be the most open and transparent administration in history,” said the Biden spokesman.

Cheney’s belief attracted controversy last year when he rebuffed the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), which wanted to know the number of documents the vice president had classified.

{mospagebreak}Cheney said his office was not fully part of the executive branch and as such did not have to comply with ISOO’s request.

Consequently, Democrats sought to cut financing for the office last summer. They argued if Cheney did not believe he was a member of the executive branch, he should not receive appropriations for the office. An amendment to the Financial Services spending bill, sponsored by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), to cut Cheney’s funding was defeated by eight votes.

At the time, Biden said he would support Emanuel’s amendment. In an interview on CNN in June 2007, the Delaware senator, himself a constitutional law professor, called Cheney’s contention that he is not fully part of the executive branch “cockamamie.”

{mosads}“This ridiculous construct, this constitutional web [Cheney’s] weaving that he is president of the Senate, he’s not a — look, if he’s not, Rahm Emanuel has a bill. If he’s not a member of the executive branch, good. Eliminate his salary. Take away his house,” said Biden.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has also said his vice president would serve as part of the executive branch.

“My vice president … will be a member of the executive branch. He won’t be one of these fourth branches of government where he thinks he’s above the law,” said the Illinois senator at a town-hall meeting in Raleigh, N.C., last month, according to The Associated Press.

But Cheney and his senior aides have made a different argument. In an interview with CNN’s Larry King in July 2007, Cheney said the vice president is a “weird duck” that has a foot in both the executive and legislative branch since he is an adviser to the president but also president of the Senate.

Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington, reiterated his boss’s belief at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this past June.

“The best that can be said is that the vice president belongs neither to the executive nor to the legislative branch, but is attached by the Constitution to the latter,” said Addington.

David Rivkin, a former senior aide to Vice Presidents George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle, agrees with Cheney’s belief.

“It is ridiculous how over the top and politicized the criticisms by the Democrats have become,” said Rivkin, now a partner at Baker Hostetler. “If you ask any serious constitutional scholar, they will say the only inherent constitutional responsibility of the vice president is to preside over and break a tie in the Senate with a vote.”

Rivkin said the debate has become “institutional competition” between Congress and the White House, with Cheney pushing back on what he believes has been an overreach of authority by lawmakers.

“The Congress cannot really micro-manage the president and that core circle of his closest advisers,” said Rivkin.

Joel Goldstein, constitutional law professor at St. Louis University, said Biden’s belief that the vice president is part of the executive branch is a return to “the more conventional understanding of what the office is.”

“It seems to be a recognition that the vice president has to be perceived as part of the executive branch in order to be significant,” said Goldstein.