Ref re Status of the Vice President 2025 SDSC 12
Reference re Status of the Vice President [2025] SDSC 12
| Date of judgment | 11th June 2025 |
| Justices |
Chief Justice TheLittleSparty |
| Held |
|
| Ruling | 3-0 |
| Applicable precedent |
MAJORITY OPINION by Justice Ivy Cactus
(with Chief Justice TheLittleSparty and Justice Syndicality agreeing)
Introduction
[1] Former Chief Justice Alexa is seeking a reference case on whether the Vice President should be considered an “elected official”. This is certainly a matter of limited relevancy, but still judicable nonetheless.
[2] Perhaps because of the narrowness of this case, the State declined to respond when given an opportunity, meaning this case was handled without a respondent. This is fully within its rights and fairly normal for reference cases.
Summary of the Petition
[3] The former Chief Justice makes a simple argument. “Article 6, Section 2 of the Constitution states ‘The President shall choose a Vice President to serve for the former’s term prior to the election,’” meaning that the Constitution does not explicitly make the Vice President an elected official. She continues that nowhere do the sections about the presidential elections in the Constitution make even a passing reference to the Vice President.
[4] She concludes by mentioning that the Vice President, if replaced during a term, is confirmed by referendum, and some may consider this an election. She counters that this is only in rare cases and that a confirmation with no other candidates can not be considered an election.
Are Officials Confirmed by Referendum Elected?
[5] The court will begin, first, by responding to the point the petitioner raised in [4] and answering the question, does the confirmation referendum for Vice Presidents appointed during the term make the Vice President an elected official?
[6] To answer this question, it is simplest to look towards other officials confirmed by referendum within the Constitution — the supervisors. These officials are, like the Vice President, confirmed by public referendum after being appointed to their posts. The court finds it difficult to reason that these officials are elected, especially because Part 5 Article 15 of the Constitution says quite clearly that “[s]upervisors may not hold any elected office,” which would, if we assume that supervisors are indeed elected officials, lead to a constitutional paradox. The more intuitive reading is that supervisors, and therefore other officials confirmed by referendum, such as a newly appointed Vice President, can not be considered elected just because their appointment undergoes public confirmation.
[7] This does not mean, though, that the Vice President can not be elected for other reasons. For the purposes of determining whether or not an official is elected, the way that they predominantly reach their position should be the one that is considered. If that were not the case, then the President, say, could not be considered an elected official because if one resigned, then an unelected official could take their place.
Is the Vice President Elected?
[8] With that in mind, the question becomes: “Is there any other reason to conclude that the Vice President is an elected official?”.
[9] The most obvious conclusion, and the one the court expects many members of the public to jump to, is “Of course it is! It’s the Vice President!” The court does not find this convincing. If the textualist reading of the law does not support the conclusion then one must consider whether the interpretation is unreasonable, using tests such as that described in In re Replacement of KingRed31 [2020] SDSC 21, the court does not see how the Vice President being elected is in any way a topic that the Golden Rule applies to, and as such the court will take the directly textualist reading of the law.
- [9.1] The court would be remiss not to mention that, in an old version of the Constitution from all the way back in 2020, the Vice President is described as being “appointed by the President to that office for the latter's term, without a confirmation vote by the Senate.” There is no oversight in the current version of the Constitution that makes it out of line with the Constitutional structure one would expect in SimDemocracy, to the extent that it leads to the Vice President being non-elected being an unreasonable interpretation. Just because the law has been misread continuously for a long time does not make said reading infallible.
[10] The court concurs with the petitioner’s points in [3] that there is nothing in the Constitution that specifies that the Vice President is inherently an elected official. It is theoretically possible, though, that there is something in further legislation that could make the Vice President an elected official. For example, an argument exists that the Vice President is “elected by proxy” because they are included on the ballot.
[11] To inspect this, the court turns to the Voter Rights Act 2023, which includes specific provisions about what must be included on the ballot. Article 6, Mandatory Ballot Provisions, does not list any specific need for the Vice President to be included on the ballot. Indeed, no law currently on the books affirms any need for the Vice President to be on the ballot, so long as the presidential candidates choose a Vice President prior to the election.
[12] The court then turns to the Multitude Of Offices Act, which says “‘Elected offices’ are to be defined as positions appointed by the people in an election.” This clearly does not apply to the Vice President, as the Constitution clearly states, as described in [3], that the Vice President is chosen by the President and not the people directly.
[13] The Vice President is explicitly stated to be chosen prior to the election, and it is not even required to be on the ballot. Under the current law, then, the Vice President can not be considered an elected official.
What if the Vice President Was Required on the Ballot?
[14] The court foresees a scenario where the legislature responds to this ruling by adding a provision requiring the Vice President on the ballot (which very well may be a good idea), and in the interest of not having to write another verdict on the same topic as soon as that happens, the court will be considering the scenario where the Vice President is on the ballot now, as well.
[15] To answer this question, the court will imagine a scenario where the Senate passes a law that requires the President to include their entire intended cabinet on the ballot. One would be hard-pressed, though, to say these officials are in that case elected. The provisions that specify how they take office still state they are appointed and confirmed by the Senate, even if they are included on the ballot. These officials would then be in the same position as the Vice President under the scenario described in [13] and, via reductio ad absurdum, the court affirms that, even if it were included on the ballot, the Vice President is not an elected official.
Implications
[16] Readers at home may be asking, “So what? Why does this matter anyway?” In short, it doesn’t all that much. The only clear thing that this leads to, as far as the court can tell, is the ability for Supervisors to serve as Vice President. The other possible argument is that the Multitude of Offices Act currently bars someone from serving in multiple elected positions concurrently. This may preclude elected officials from serving on, say, the Bar Ethics Committee, because its members are elected by the members of the bar; the Vice President would be legally able to, regardless. This logic extends to other such minor elected officials.
Verdict
[17] The Vice President is not an elected official.
Citations
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