On Monday, when Donald Trump and JD Vance are inaugurated, all eyes will be on the presidency. But Vance’s swearing-in should direct at least some attention toward a question about the vice presidency: Is the office in decline?

During the Carter administration, the long-underutilized position finally turned the corner as Vice President Walter Mondale secured regular meetings with the president, was “cc’d” on all presidential memoranda and was awarded White House office space. These advances helped him become a valued policy adviser, put him at the center of key administration accomplishments and elevated the office’s reputation, demonstrating that the vice president could help the chief executive govern more effectively.

In the ensuing decades, these institutional arrangements held firm and even grew. Post-Mondale vice presidents could point to major achievements. George H.W. Bush traveled to Europe in 1983 and successfully reassured NATO allies about President Ronald Reagan’s nuclear posture toward the Soviets. Al Gore’s performance in a debate with Ross Perot helped get NAFTA approved. Dick Cheney’s policy influence during his first term was so far-reaching he was hyperbolically dubbed “co-president.” While the Obama administration rejected Cheney’s outsized role for itself, Joe Biden still became a close adviser and helped achieve administration goals.

With Biden, the vice presidency seemed to return to a more appropriate equilibrium after Cheney’s extraordinary tenure. But Trump and Mike Pence’s election in 2016 resulted in a further drop in the office’s stature. Pence was given some serious assignments, broke ties in the Senate and thwarted the president’s malign Jan. 6 plans. But Trump’s capricious decision-making, erratic pronouncements and desire for dominance meant Pence was often publicly embarrassed and the status of his office downgraded.

Kamala Harris’ relationship with President Biden has at times seemed cool — he reportedly dismissed her early on as “a work in progress” — and Biden’s governing experience minimized his need for her counsel. As with Pence, Harris contributed much through her tie-breaking votes, but also like her predecessor, she could not point to any big policy “wins” in her executive-branch duties.

During the Pence and Harris vice presidencies, many formal aspects of the Mondale model remained in place. However, much of the substance of the modern vice presidency’s role in governance may be draining away. Press characterizations of officeholders seem to reflect this phenomenon. Mondale and most of his successors were routinely cited in newspapers as the “greatest” or “most influential” vice presidents ever. However, Pence and Harris (along with Dan Quayle) totaled by far the fewest such references in the modern vice-presidential era, reflecting the perception that the two most recent vice presidents — and likely the status of their office — may not measure up to the levels that vice presidents since Mondale had generally enjoyed.

Vance could reverse this apparent trend, but that is unlikely. Trump needed Pence at the outset of his first administration since the former had no governing experience and the latter was an experienced Washington hand. Now, Trump has four years of White House experience while Vance is a novice. Moreover, Trump’s penchant for degrading the reputation of those around him will likely frustrate efforts by Vance to re-elevate his office. To have a third consecutive vice president lack a significant and successful role in executive-branch business — involving White Houses of both parties — would make matters look less like an anomaly (e.g., Quayle) and more like the new normal, which bodes ill for the institution.

But, why should anyone — other than a vice president — care? Three reasons. First, an effective vice president is an important contributor to well-informed presidential decision-making. As Mondale himself noted, the vice president’s status as “the only other public official elected nationwide, not affected by specific obligations or institutional interests of either the Congress or the executive branch, and being able to look at the Government as a whole” puts the officeholder “in a unique position to advise the President.” Second, a successful vice president can help secure policy outcomes for the president. Third, if the vice president comes to be seen as reverting to pre-Mondale levels of status and achievement, the office may become less attractive to prospective vice-presidential candidates. This in turn might reduce the caliber of officeholders as well as the on-the-job training they would otherwise gain as potential presidential successors; no small thing considering that 15 vice presidents have become president.

Whatever one thinks of Vance, Americans should take interest in what may be the decline of the office he will soon hold.

Roy Brownell writes about the vice presidency and presidential succession.