The Presidency
- Presidents and prime ministers
- Characteristics of parliaments
- Parliamentary system twice as common
- Chief executive chosen by legislature
- Cabinet ministers chosen from among members of parliament
- Prime minister remains in power as long as his or her party or coalition maintains a majority in the legislature
- Differences
- Presidents are often outsiders; prime ministers are always insiders, chosen by party members in parliament
- Presidents choose their cabinet from outside Congress; prime ministers choose members of parliament
- Presidents have no guaranteed majority in the legislature; prime ministers always have a majority. The United States usually has a divided government.
- Presidents and the legislature often work at cross-purposes
- Even when one party controls both branches
- A consequence of separation of powers
- Only Roosevelt and Johnson had much luck with Congress
- Divided Government
- Divided versus unified government
- Fifteen of twenty-two congressional/presidential elections since 1952 produced divided government
- Americans dislike divided government because it can lead to gridlock.
- Does gridlock matter?
- But divided government enacts as many important laws as a unified government
- Reason: Unified government is something of a myth in U.S.
- Is policy gridlock bad?
- Unclear whether gridlock is always bad; it is a necessary consequence of representative democracy
- Representative democracy opposite direct democracy
- The evolution of the presidency
- Delegates feared both anarchy and monarchy
- Idea of a plural executive
- Idea of an executive checked by a council
- Concerns of the Founders
- Fear of military power of president who could overpower states
- Fear of presidential corruption of Senate
- Fear of presidential bribery to ensure reelection
- The electoral college
- Each state to choose own method for selecting electors
- Electors to meet in own capital to vote for president and vice president
- If no majority, House would decide
- The president's term of office
- Precedent of George Washington and two terms
- Twenty-second Amendment in 1951 limits to two terms
- Problem of establishing the legitimacy of the office
- Provision for orderly transfer of power
- The first presidents
- Prominent men helped provide legitimacy
- Minimal activism of early government contributed to lessening fear of the presidency
- Appointed people of stature in the community (rule of fitness)
- Relations with Congress were reserved; few vetoes, no advice
- The Jacksonians
- Jackson sought to maximize powers of presidency
- Vigorous use of veto for policy reasons
- Challenged Congress
- The reemergence of Congress
- With brief exceptions the next hundred years was a period of congressional ascendancy
- Intensely divided public opinion
- Only Lincoln expanded presidential power
- Asserted "implied powers" and power of commander in chief
- Justified by emergency conditions
- President mostly a negative force to Congress until the New Deal
- Since the 1930s power has been institutionalized in the presidency
- Popular conception of the president as the center of government contradicts reality; Congress often policy leader
- The powers of the president
- Formal powers found in Article II
- Not a large number of explicit powers
- Potential for power found in ambiguous clauses of the Constitution, such as power as commander in chief and duty to "take care that laws be faithfully executed"
- Greatest source of power lies in politics and public opinion
- Increase in broad statutory authority
- Expectation of presidential leadership from the public
- The office of the president
- The White House Office
- Contains the president's closest assistants
- Three types of organization
- Circular
- Pyramid
- Ad hoc
- Staff typically worked on the campaign: a few are experts
- Relative influence of staff depends on how close one's office is to the president's
- The Executive Office of the President
- Composed of agencies that report directly to the president
- Appointments must receive Senate confirmation
- Office of Management and Budget most important
- Assembles the budget
- Develops reorganization plans
- Reviews legislative proposals of agencies
- The cabinet
- Largely a fiction, not mentioned in Constitution
- President appoints or controls more members of cabinet than does prime minister
- Secretaries become preoccupied and defensive about their own departments
- Independent agencies, commissions, and judgeships
- President appoints members of agencies that have a quasi-independent status
- Agency heads serve a fixed term and can be removed only "for cause"
- Judges can be removed only by impeachment
- Who gets appointed
- President knows few appointees personally
- Most appointees have had federal experience
- "In-and-outers"; alternate federal and private sector jobs
- No longer have political followings but picked for expertise
- Need to consider important interest groups when making appointments
- Rivalry between department heads and White House staff
- Presidential character
- Eisenhower: orderly
- Kennedy: improviser
- Johnson: dealmaker
- Nixon: mistrustful
- Ford: genial
- Carter: outsider
- Reagan: communicator
- Bush: hands-on manager
- Clinton: focus on details
- Bush: a different kind of outsider
- The power to persuade
- Formal opportunities for persuasion
- The three audiences
- Other politicians and leaders in Washington, D.C.; reputation very important
- Party activists and officials inside Washington
- The various publics
- Popularity and influence
- Presidents try to transform popularity into support in Congress
- Little effect of presidential coattails
- Members of Congress believe it is politically risky to challenge a popular president
- Popularity is unpredictable and influenced by factors beyond the president's control.
- The decline in popularity
- Popularity highest immediately after an election
- Declines by midterm after honeymoon period
- The power to say no
- Veto
- Veto message
- Pocket veto (only before end of Congress)
- Congress rarely overrided vetoes in 1996
- Executive privilege
- Confidential communications between president and advisers
- Justification
- Separation of powers
- Need for candid advice
- U.S. v.Nixon (1973) rejects claim of absolute executive privilege
- Impoundment of funds
- Defined: presidential refusal to spend funds appropriated by Congress
- Countered by Budget Reform Act of 1974
- Requires president to notify Congress of funds he does not intend to spend
- Congress must agree in forty-five days
- The president's program
- Putting together a program
- President can try to have a policy on everything (Carter)
- President can concentrate on a small number of initiatives (Reagan)
- Constraints
- Public reaction may be adverse
- Limited time and attention span
- Unexpected crises
- Programs can be changed only marginally
- Need for president to be selective about what he wants
- Heavy reliance on opinion polls
- Impact of dramatic events and prolonged crises
- Attempts to reorganize the executive branch
- An item on presidential agendas since the administration of Herbert Hoover
- Bush and the Department of Homeland Defense
- White House Office of Homeland Security created in aftermath of terrorist attack of September 11
- Small staff
- Little budgetary authority
- No ability to enforce decisions
- Bush's call for a reorganization
- Creation of third largest cabinet department encompassing twenty-two federal agencies
- 170,000 employees and an annual budget of almost $40 million
- Fate of proposal is pending, but it is neither the first of its kind nor the largest
- Reasons for reorganizing
- Large number of agencies
- Easier to change policy through reorganization
- Reorganization outside the White House staff must be by law
- Presidential transition
- Few presidents serve two terms
- The vice president
- May succeed on death of president
- Has happened eight times
- John Tyler defined status of ascending vice president: president in title and in powers
- Rarely are vice presidents elected president
- Unless they first took over for a president who died
- Only five instances otherwise: Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Nixon, and Bush
- "A rather empty job"
- Candidates still pursue it
- Preside over Senate and vote in case of a tie
- Leadership powers in Senate are weak
- Problems of succession
- What if the president falls ill?
Examples: Garfield, Wilson
- If vice president steps up, who becomes vice president?
- Succession Act (1886): designated secretary of state as next in line
- Amended in 1947 to designate Speaker of the House
- Twenty-fifth Amendment resolved both issues
- Allows vice president to serve as "acting president" if president is disabled; decided by president, by vice president and cabinet, or by two-thirds vote of Congress
- Requires vice president who ascends to office on death or resignation of the president to name a vice president
- Must be confirmed by both houses
- Examples: Agnew and Nixon resignations
- Impeachment
- Judges most frequent targets of impeachment
- Indictment by the House, conviction by the Senate
- How powerful is the president?
- Both president and Congress are constrained
- Reasons for constraints
- Complexity of issues
- Scrutiny of the media
- Power of interest groups