Sources used in this document:

The current U.S. Senate Majority Leader is Bill Frist of Kansas. The Majority Leader is a unique position because the powers exerted by the majority leader are not delegated by law, but by custom. The Majority Leader is elected by his party to serve as the majority party's spokesman in the Senate. In addition, the Majority Leader has the power to schedule the Senate's legislative business. However, the Majority Leader is not the Senate's presiding officer is the President of the Senate, which is a role given to the Vice President. In addition, there is a President Pro-Tempore, who leads the Senate when the Vice President is absent. However, those two roles have become antiquated and the Majority Leader is the de facto leader of the Senate. When the Senate majority party differs from the President's political party, the Senate Majority Leader is generally the leader of his party.

The current Vice President of the United States is Richard Cheney. The Vice President succeeds to the office of the President if the President is removed from office, which implies that the Vice President should be the second-most powerful member of the Federal government. In reality, the actual role that the Vice President plays in policymaking depends tremendously on the individual occupying the Presidency. In fact, the Vice President's only official duty is to serve as the President of the Senate. Until recent times Vice Presidents had little power. However, modern Vice Presidents have been included in the President's cabinet meetings, and are statutory members of the National Security Council. Furthermore, the Vice President's role as President of the Senate can be extremely powerful. For example, in 2001, the Senators were evenly split between the political parties; therefore the Vice President cast the tie-breaking vote, which gave the Republicans the Senate majority. Furthermore, Cheney is extremely involved in drafting policy for the current administration.

As one can see, the determination of who has more policymaking power, the Speaker, the Majority Leader, or the Vice President is not simply a function of their Constitutional responsibilities. In fact, of the three positions, one does not exist under the Constitution, while another has very few delegated responsibilities under the Constitution. However, the reality is that both of those positions have tremendous power, because the Majority Leader is the de facto leader of his political party if that party differs from the President's, and the Vice President has had an increasingly important role in administrative policymaking. Currently the Vice President is the most powerful of the three. Not only has he played an extremely important role in Bush's administration, but he also cast the swing vote that gave control of the Senate (and, therefore the entire Federal government) to the Republican Party.