Acting Vice President of the United States is an unofficial (and incorrect) designation that has occasionally been used when the office of Vice President was vacant.
The president pro tempore of the United States Senate assumes the role of presiding officer over the Senate in the event that the vice presidency is rendered vacant either by death, resignation, removal from office or succession to the presidency. Under the 1792 Act of Succession, in the absence of a Vice President, the President pro tempore was next in line for the powers of the presidency.
Historically, some have referred to the President pro tempore under these circumstances as "Acting Vice President." However, no such office exists in law or tradition. No person who could ever have been regarded as "Acting Vice President" has ever succeeded to the powers and duties of the Presidency, even in an acting capacity. Lafayette Foster and Benjamin Wade would have been the closest to become President. Following the adoption of the 1886 Act of Succession, the President pro tempore of the Senate was no longer next in line for the presidency after the Vice-President.
Nonetheless, James Eastland, Senator from Mississippi, was referred to as "Acting Vice President" twice while he was President pro tempore in the 1970s, during periods of a vacancy in the vice presidency. The first occurred following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, prior to the appointment of Gerald Ford to replace him, and the second occurred when Ford became president, vacating the vice presidency, before Nelson Rockefeller was confirmed as his replacement. During both these periods, however, Speaker of the House Carl Albert was first in the line of succession to the presidency under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, ahead of Eastland.
In 1964, presidential advisor Richard Neustadt, proposed the creation of a statutory office of Acting Vice President in hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The proposal was never adopted.
Famous quotes containing the words united states, acting, vice, president, united and/or states:
“When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“We don’t want bores in the theatre. We don’t want standardised acting, standard actors with standard-shaped legs. Acting needs everybody, cripples, dwarfs and people with noses so long. Give us something that is different.”
—Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882–1976)
“Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“To be President of the United States, sir, is to act as advocate for a blind, venomous, and ungrateful client; still, one must make the best of the case, for the purposes of Providence.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)
“Colonel “Bat” Guano: Okay, I’m going to get your money for you. But if you don’t get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what’s going to happen to you?
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake: What?
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You’re going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)