Effort Launched to Make October 30 'Vice Presidents Day'

Mike ter Maat will mark John Adams’s birthday in Quincy with a call to reconsider the role of the vice presidency

QUINCY, MA, UNITED STATES, October 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- An effort to recognize October 30 as Vice Presidents Day will be launched in Quincy, Massachusetts, on the birthday of John Adams, America’s first vice president.

Mike ter Maat, a declared candidate for the 2028 Republican vice-presidential nomination, will be in Quincy on October 30 to announce and discuss the proposal in the town where America’s first vice president was born on October 30, 1735.

Media and curious citizens are invited to meet at 10:00am at the Best Western Adams Inn, at 29 Hancock Street in Quincy.

“We have Presidents Day. But what America really needs now is Vice Presidents Day, not because vice presidents need another honor, but because the vice presidency needs another look,” ter Maat said.

The holiday popularly called Presidents Day began as “Washington’s Birthday” and remains officially so named under federal law. October 30 also offers a lighter attraction: “Vice Presidents Day followed by Halloween makes a pretty good two-day celebration. Maybe someday October 30 can even be a day off.”

Why?

“The modern vice president has become a presidential Mini-Me,” says ter Maat, notwithstanding the Founders’ intent for vice presidents to be independently selected and to be independent actors from the presidents in whose administrations they serve.”

This is ironic, given that the vice president is the only other elected officer in an administration, presumably with his or her own political base, and the only member of the administration who cannot be fired by the president.

According to ter Maat, both parties should empower national convention delegates to select vice-presidential nominees through open, competitive deliberation and national public vetting. “A vice president selected by national delegates would be accountable to the entire party and to its principles, rather than to a single politician,” said ter Maat.

The customary tradition in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party of encouraging presidential nominees to select their vice-presidential running mates has led to a problem according to ter Maat. “A vice president selected by one person naturally feels beholden to that one individual,” ter Maat said.

Exacerbating the problem, presidential nominees often choose running mates different from themselves to balance the ticket, only for those differences to contribute to the marginalization of the vice president after Election Day.

Now More Than Ever

The opportunity to empower national party delegates to select their vice-presidential nominees matters more as executive-branch power has expanded, argues ter Maat. While presidential power has expanded relative to Congress, relative to the states and relative to original constitutional expectations, the unitary-executive theory has increased the emphasis on presidential control of the executive branch.

“For sixty years we have watched presidential power grow at an accelerating pace,” said ter Maat, “highlighting that the Constitution’s guardrails do not enforce themselves.”

A legitimately independent vice president would become what ter Maat calls a “constitutional sheriff” inside the administration, a political voice capable of asking what the Constitution permits and what the party promised.

The objective would be for an open process of selection by national delegates to put broader party interests ahead of any individual’s preferences. An open process would also counter suspicion that political parties make consequential decisions behind closed doors in the interests of leadership rather than their constituents.

A detailed analysis is presented in ter Maat’s essay, “Why October 30 Should Become Vice Presidents Day,” available at https://miketermaatthefuture.substack.com.

“Vice Presidents Day should be about more than honoring former vice presidents,” ter Maat said. “This is about honoring the Founders’ vision of a legitimately independent and politically accountable vice president. That’s worth waking up one morning to think about.”

Ashley Granby
Mike ter Maat for Vice President
+1 605-430-1221
ashley@miketermaat.com
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