Francis J. Vita

**Succeeded by:** Office abolished

*"I will not yield!"*

**Francis Joseph Vita-Soufong**, commonly referred to as Vita, was an American politician who served as the 50th President of the United States and the first VC president to complete an elected term. Vita and then-Vice Presidential running mate Helvin defeated the Democratic Sandoval/Waffles ticket and Libertarian candidate Libertad in a landslide victory during the March 2020 election, in which the Republican National Committee, lacking a candidate, endorsed Vita. As the first Independent U.S. president since Washington, Vita served through the period known as the March Revolution and was ultimately assassinated by former Vice President Sandoval at the inauguration of his successor, former President Gabe McKenna.

Throughout his presidency, Vita sought to bring major legislative initiatives to the fore, working directly with Secretaries on their respective bills by providing outlines and writing major sections. This effort was led by arguably one of the most active Cabinets in VC history, culminating in the signing of historic measures that included the Conviction Removal and Institutional Misdemeanor Expungement (C.R.I.M.E.) Act, the National Infrastructure Authority and Advancement Act (N.I.A.A.A.), the first Trade Treaty between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, the Work Opportunity Act of 2020 (*AmWorks*), and the Clean and Renewable Energy Act of 2020. In total, Vita signed 39 bills and issued 9 vetoes, many permissible under the Supreme Court’s ruling that prior vetoes were invalid due to a lack of a clause explicitly granting any president such authority; this was fixed when Vita authored a Constitutional Amendment restoring that reserved power. His original campaign platform is available here.

Vita also sought to make broad use of other executive powers in classic Underwood fashion. He wrote and signed 7 executive orders entailing: a response to the COVID-19 outbreak; the undoing of harmful executive action on healthcare access; regulation of rehabilitation services; improving federal agency coordination on the homelessness crisis; combating food insecurity; expanding protective status in the immigration crisis; and prioritizing an investigative focus on tax collection from the wealthy. Vita also ultimately appointed 3 SCOTUS Justices (Soro, Richard, and Mike, with a fourth confirmed nominee, Hull, having vacated the seat) and established the lower court system and caucuses by signing congressional Acts. He also used his bully pulpit to rally members of Congress to his cause, making speeches like the first non-SOTU Joint Address to Congress and announcements that garnered support across the aisle for his "war on destitution". A day-by-day timeline of his presidency is available here.

Vita’s single greatest legislative priority was that of healthcare reform. Throughout his terms as HHS Secretary under every VC President before him, he authored and passed several bills on related issues; among these were the Girding Accessibility of Insurance Networks (G.A.I.N.) Act, the Leveraging Allocations for Medicaid Expansion (L.A.M.E.) Act, the Act to Restore the Mental Healthcare System of 2020, the National Responsible Disease Containment Act of 2020, and the bipartisan Halting Obstructionist Objectives of Transgression and Expansion of Residency Status (H.O.O.T.E.R.S.) Act, all of which passed with sweeping majorities. Vita temporarily resigned the position in protest of then-President Starro's abrupt firing of then-Chief of Staff McKenna. In his final days on the server, Vita also proposed establishing a House Standing Committee on Healthcare Reform in VC. A glimpse of other healthcare policies he is in support of, with regard to repairing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is available here.

Despite an 85% approval rating server-wide, significant controversies dogged the early days of the Vita administration. Among these was the fact that despite being the first president to contend with simulating the real-world consequences of the coronavirus outbreak, Vita disbanded the task force and did not implement emergency measures after the first week of his term. His response was that "having already passed an emergency stimulus package on his first day in office and signed off on an emergency EO, [he] did not feel VC ought to be consumed with the effects and stresses of the ongoing pandemic". Other controversies included the early withdrawal of former President Wilson’s SCOTUS nomination (a misstep Vita has since apologized for), the failure to pass VC’s first Budget with significant cuts to overblown military spending (which ultimately did not come to a vote despite days of haggling, due to obstruction by then House Speaker Cross), ~~the jailing of reporters and socialists~~, and the size of the administration’s 15-seat Cabinet. Vita attempted to rectify these disputes by establishing a new Roosevelt Room channel to discuss measures with Congressional leadership and by proposing the reestablishment of the CBO channel to review spending (replaced by the bill budget teams). Ultimately, while President Vita at times clashed with Congress over priorities and agendas, their uniquely mutual commitment to accomplishing the aforementioned initiatives helped cement this presidency as one remembered for delivering Progress Over Polarity.

Birthname

Francis Joseph Vita

Alias

Yung Vig

Underwood #1

The Indian

Spouse

Emma Reed Soufong

(February 21st, 2020 - April 12th, 2020)

Residence

New York, 'Murica

Profession

50th President of the United States of America (I)

(March 12th - April 12th, 2020)

Secretary of Health and Human Services (I)

(February 13th - March 12th, 2020, January 25th - February 10th, 2020)

Delegate to the Constitutional Convention (I)

(February 14th - February 28th, 2020)

House Deputy Minority Whip (D)

(January 18th - January 25th, 2020)

House Representative from Puerto Rico, Maryland (I)

(February 10th - February 13th, 2020, January 13th - January 18th, 2020, respectively)

Political Party

Independent (no party)

Awards

Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by President Wilson)

Presidential Medal of Freedom (awarded by President McKenna)