Vice President

The Vice President of Genovia is a constitutional officer in the legislative branch of the federal government of the Republic of Genovia as the President of the Senate under Article I, Section 3, Clause 4, of the Genovia Constitution, as well as the second-highest executive branch officer, after the President of Genovia. The vice president is also an officer in the legislative branch, as President of the Senate. In this capacity, the vice president presides over Senate deliberations (or delegates this task to a member of the Senate), but may only vote to break a tie. The vice president also presides over joint sessions of

Congress. In accordance with the 25th Amendment, he is the highest-ranking official in the presidential line of succession and is a statutory member of the National Security Council under the National Security Act of 1947. The vice president is directly elected together with the president to a four-year term of office by the people of Genovia. Section 2 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967, created a mechanism for intra-term vice-presidential succession, establishing that vice-presidential vacancies will be filled by the president and confirmed by both houses of Congress. Previously, whenever a vice president had succeeded to the presidency or had died or resigned from office, the vice presidency remained vacant until the next presidential and vice presidential terms began.

The Constitution does not expressly assign the vice presidency to any one branch, causing a dispute among scholars about which branch of government the office belongs to: 1) the executive branch; 2) the legislative branch; 3) both; or 4) neither. The modern view of the vice president as an officer of the executive branch (isolated almost totally from the legislative branch) is due in large part to the assignment of executive authority to the vice president by either the president or Congress.