Palin Still Thinks that the Vice President is in Charge of the Senate

by Blue Stockings | DDay: "Sarah Palin, proving that even local interviewers can make her look bad."

Christ, couldn't someone have taken her gently aside and read the Constitution to her by this time?  Though I get the impression that with Palin, it wouldn't help much:  facts that aren't compatible with her preconceptions probably slip right out of her consciousness again...or such is my preconception.  As Senate majority leader Harry Reid told Think Progress, this is the second time she's said it.  "While the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it,"  he amplified.  (Think Progress)

Civics is hard!

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sat for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. In response to a question sent to the network by a third grader at a local elementary school about what the Vice President does, Palin erroneously argued that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate“:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. (Think Progress; emphasis in original)

Hilarious.  Obviously, Palin didn't give Piper a chance to explain it. 

Anyway, here's what the VP's relationship to the Senate really is, Sarah.  Learn it, love it, live it---or rather, scratch that last.

Article I of the Constitution establishes an exceptionally limited role for the Vice President — giving the office holder a vote only when the Senate is “equally divided”:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate website explains that the modern role of Vice Presidents has been to preside over the Senate “only on ceremonial occasions.” ThinkProgress contacted Senior Assistant Paliamentarian Peter Robinson, who also disputed Palin’s characterization of the Vice President’s role:

In modern practice the Vice President doesn’t really control the Senate. … If anyone has a responsibility to try to govern the Senate, it’s the responsibility of the two leaders.  (Think Progress)

Yes.  If by some disaster, Palin becomes Vice President, I hope that Senate majority and minority leaders are prepared to be swept aside like matchsticks when she comes in to preside and make life better for Republicans. 

Kasgro X:  "Truly masterful. And they didn't open the trap door under her chair even once!"

The Heretik:  "This instills confidence.  What we need is somebody who might be in charge who doesn’t know what she would be in charge of."

DDay:  "Makes you long for the constitutional respect of a Dick Cheney."

Blue Texan:  "I know wingnuts aren't supposed to know jack about the US Constitution, but this is getting rigoddamndiculous."

Yep, she be dumb.  But isn't she cute?

Memeorandum is here.

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