Vice President of the United States the Twenty-fifth Amendment established a procedure for filling such a vacancy: This procedure has been implemented twice since the amendment came into force. The first instance occurred in 1973 following the October 10 resignation of Spiro Agnew, when Gerald Ford was nominated by President Richard Nixon and confirmed by Congress. The second occurred 10 months later following Ford's August 9, 1974 accession to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation, when Nelson Rockefeller was nominated by President Ford and confirmed by Congress. Had it not been for this new constitutional mechanism, the vice presidency would have remained vacant after Agnew's resignation and
Vice President of the United States the legislative branch has contracted; for example, he presides over the Senate only infrequently. 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. Mike Pence of Indiana