【美国精神】第29期

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Explanation: 

  While the president of the United States has an exciting and important job running the country, the vice¹ president does not have as big a role (or job) in the U.S.government. According to the U.S. Constitution, the vice president does only two things. First, if the president is unable to continue working as president, the vice president becomes the new president. Second, the vice president is the president of the Senate (or law making part of government) and can vote to break ties(or decide which side wins when each side has an equal number of votes). In addition to these two main jobs, the vice president has some other duties (or responsibilities) that the president can give to him or her. 

  Normally the vice president is elected (or chosen by the people) with the president during the normal presidential elections. But this is something interesting: Two men have been vice presidents without ever being elected-and one of them evenbecame president without ever being elected! 

  How did this happen? In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States and Spiro Agnew was elected his vice president. However, there were many scandals during their administration (or the period of time he was president of the United States). A scandal is something that happens where a famous person behaves badly and people become very angry about it. Because of these scandals,Spiro Agnew resigned (or decided² to stop working) as vice president in 1973. When that happened, Gerald Ford³ was nominated to become the new vice president, meaning that President Richard Nixon wanted Gerald Ford to be his new vice president and the Senate approved the nomination⁴ (or said it was okay). He was not elected, but given the job by the president and the Senate. 

  Just one year later, in 1974, the scandals had become worse and President Richard Nixon resigned. When that happened, Vice President Gerald Ford became the new president. But he had never been elected by the voters! This was the first and only time that the United States had a president who was not elected by the voters. 

  And, after Gerald Ford became president, the vice presidency⁵ was vacant (or empty), so he nominated Nelson Rockefeller to become the new vice president. This was the second and last time that the United States had a vice president who wasn't elected by the voters. 

 

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