Historically, being vice president was a pretty thankless, do-nothing job. The role was not clearly defined in the Constitution. The voters’ perception was that the VP was nothing more than the guy standing by in case something happened to the president. Walter Mondale ushered in a whole new model of the modern vice presidency under Jimmy Carter, actively participating in meetings and policymaking. Since then, Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden all expanded the role greatly.
Harris fits the mold of the modern VP and has been active on a number of fronts in policymaking and advocacy, though the president has assigned her some particularly thorny and hot-button issues. She tackled the immigration challenge convincingly by working on addressing long-term problems in Mexico and Guatemala through a “root causes” approach, focusing on improving economic and social conditions in Central America to make it more attractive to stay in one’s home country rather than emigrating. Unfortunately for Harris, the recent influx of migrants has come more from Caribbean-facing states, including Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. One might fault Harris for not being able to predict immigration patterns, but she was able to find funding for her initial plan before it was scuttled. This shows a willingness to propose concrete policy solutions, a vanishingly rare trait in politics these days.
