It does not, Rig.

"ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala and Z. Byron Wolf Report: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said in a local interview that the vice president is "in charge of" the U.S. Senate and "can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes" – the second time she has claimed a more expansive role for the vice president than the U.S. Constitution outlines.

On Monday while in Colorado, Palin taped an interview with Denver NBC affiliate KUSA. At the end of the interview, she was asked to participate in the station's "Questions from the Third Grade" series, in which candidates have fielded questions from local elementary school students.

"Brandon Garcia wants to know, 'What does the Vice President do?'" Palin was asked.

"That's something that Piper would ask me, as a second grader, also," Palin responded, referencing her seven-year-old daughter.

"A vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're there like the team member, the teammate to the president," Palin continued. "But also, they're in charge of the United States 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. And it's a great job and I look forward to having that job."

While the Vice President does serve as president of the Senate, according to the U.S. Constitution, the vice president's role is fairly limited to casting tie-breaking votes.

Article I of the Constitution states that "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided."

In recent years, the role has been largely ceremonial. Vice President Dick Cheney has cast just eight tie-breaking votes during the Bush administration. Most recently in March, Vice President Cheney broke a tie on a procedural motion whether to consider an amendment that would have rolled back tax rates for the alternative minimum tax.

The vice president can also preside over floor debate in the Senate -- a role usually filled by the Senate president pro tempore, and more often done by first-term senators.

Palin was also asked the role of the vice president in her debate earlier this month with Senator Joe Biden, where she cited the vice president's role presiding over the Senate as a way to "exert a bit more authority" to work with the Senate on the president's agenda.

"I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are," Palin said in the debate.

When asked to explain her remarks in an interview with Fox News the day after the debate, Plain reiterated her position that overseeing the Senate would give her "a tremendous amount of flexibility and authority" to work with the Senate."...(ABC)

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The difference between presiding over the administrative procedures of the Senate, usually done by the Senate's presiding pro tem president, and using the Senate to have a lot of influence over the legislative branch, is palpable and obvious. It is a necessary distinction which Palin's ingenuous assertions undermine.


A