Ap Gov- The executive branch
How Powerful is the president?
1. Congress AND the president have lost power because gov't as a whole has become more constrained by ever-growing complex issues that Washington must deal with. 2. The problems are growing ever more complicated, and the media is always scrutinizing gov't actions. 3. Thus, presidents have acquired certain rules of thumb for dealing with their political problems: i. "Move it or lose it" - get things done early during the term, before influence wanes. ii. "Avoid details" - Have a few top priorities and leave the rest to other experts. iii. "People, not cabinets, accomplish things" - Find and closely watch capable White House subordinates who are given responsibility.
Presidential Character
1. Every president brings a different style to the White House, and many are judged by their personalities. 2. Dwight D. Eisenhower brought an orderly, military style to the White House—sharp, precise, deliberate. 3. John Kennedy was bold, dashing, suave, and improvising. 4. Lyndon Johnson was a master strategist who liked to do everything by himself. 5. Richard Nixon was very intelligent but sometimes ruthless and some times paranoid. 6. Jimmy Carter was an outsider to Washington who tried to do too much. 7. Ronald Reagan also an outsider, but being a former movie star, he was dashing and popular and a superb leader and communicator. 8. George Bush was very hands-on and made personal contacts with people. 9. Bill Clinton was a very effective speaker who paid attention to many details.
Divided Government
*A divided government is when the president's party is not the same as the party that controls the House or Senate; this has occurred fifteen times in the past 22 Congressional elections. *Unified governments, where the same party controls the presidency and Congress, are relatively rare. * Studies show that divided governments pass and deny bills as likely as unified governments do, and this is probably because the concept of a unified gov't is a myth: just because the same party controls both branches does not mean the branches will agree. *Separation of powers and checks and balances ensure that Congress and the presidency will always compete for power, and besides, parties themselves are split among liberal and conservative lines, among others. *The only time a truly unified gov't is in power is when the same ideological wing of a party controls both branches, such as during Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal days or Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society Days, and only then does rapid change come.
Gridlock
*Gridlock is a necessary part of representative democracy, a system that causes delays, intensifies deliberations, and forces compromises, as opposed to direct democracy, which is the opposite. *Gridlock is actually good in that it protects the interests of many, since gridlock only occurs when many diverse sides are present, and the more sides are present, the more people are being represented, and the more gridlock there can be. *Recently, divided gov't has become more common than unified gov't, which seemed to reign during the first half of the 20th century. * The relative power of the president and Congress, though, has changed greatly over the times.
The office of the president
*Not until 1857 did the president have a personal secretary paid by public funds; not till 1901 did he get a Secret Service bodyguard; and not until 1921 could he submit a presidential budget. *Today, the president has a HUGE staff that he can use but not necessarily control. *The "rule of propinquity" says that the person in the room with the president when he makes his decision has the most influence on him; thus, the people closest to the president wield the greatest amount of power. *The people in the White House Office can be hired and fired by the president at will, and they can be organized by "pyramid," "circular," and "ad hoc" methods. *Pyramid structure- most assistants report through a hierarchy to a chief of staff. *Circular structure- all cabinet secretaries and aides report directly to the president. *Ad hoc structure- task forces, committees, and informal groups of friends and advisors deal directly with the president.
Presidents and Prime Ministers
*Only sixteen countries in the world have a directly elected president, out of the 60 or so countries that have democratic characteristics; the alternative to a president is a prime minister. * In a parliamentary system, like in Europe, the legislature, not the people, chooses the leader (the prime minister), who in turn chooses the other ministers from parliament members. *The prime minister stays in power as long as his supporting party or coalition stays in power, and the voters vote for members of the parliament (usually by party), not for the leader. *Presidents are usually (but not always) outsiders with little previous major political experience to Washington because they are not usually associated with the "mess in Washington" and voters thus elect them; meanwhile, since prime ministers are from the parliament, they are always insiders. * The President cannot choose Congressional members to be a part of his cabinet, but a prime minister's cabinet can come from the parliament. *Even when the executive and legislative branches are manned by the same party, there can be friction, and very little may be done (as in the Kennedy and Carter administrations).
The Evolution of the Presidency
*The Founding Fathers feared anarchy and monarchy about equally, and initially, governor positions reflected that (elected by legislatures; some had one-year terms). *Many wanted an executive that was checked by a council that would have to approve all executive decisions, and few listened to Alexander Hamilton's pleas for something that was very similar to an elective monarchy like in Britain. *Eventually, those who believed that a large nation could only be successfully ruled by single president with significant powers won out, and the U.S. Constitution created a single president with broad powers. *Early politicians were worried that a president could take over state governments with its power over the militia or rig elections to re-elect himself over and over again. *The American president was the first leader of its type ever *George Washington's decision to serve two terms established a "two term precedent" that was not broken until Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, and today, there is a two term limit for the president, as dictated by the 22nd Amendment. *At the time the Constitution was written, its writers could only hope that an orderly transition of power would occur when one president left office and another assumed this, but such fears were laid to rest when Thomas Jefferson peacefully took power after John Adams's term expired. *Parties were not anticipated or wanted at first, but they became quite common, and the first few presidents were prominent, respected politicians who left office without any trouble; this, as well as the fact that early U.S. gov't had relatively little to do, helped to legitimize the presidency. *When Andrew Jackson became president, he saw himself as the "Tribune of the People," and he used his power more than ever, vetoing 12 acts of Congress, not shrinking back when Congress didn't like what he was doing, and lashing out at policies that he didn't like.
Who Gets appointed
*The president rarely knows more than a few of the people that he appoints and is lucky if more than a most of them agree with his decisions, and most cabinet members come from private business, universities, "think tanks," foundations, law firms, labor unions, and other private sectors where they have not really worked with the president on many, if any matters. *However, the men and women appointed to cabinet and sub-cabinet positions usually have SOME prior federal experience; they usually alternate between gov't jobs and jobs in the private sector (usually law). *In a parliamentary system, cabinet officers are typically full-time politicians. *Cabinet members used to be very powerful, but now, they are more likely to be experts in a certain field and not necessarily staunch party powers (due to weakening of political parties). *The president wants to appoint cabinet members who are experts in their respective fields, but he also wants to recognize various politically important groups, regions, and organizations. *There is a rivalry between the White House staff, which sees itself as extensions of the president and his opinions, and the department heads, which see themselves as repositories of expert knowledge.
The Power to Persuade
*The president's ceremonial powers do allow him to use his powers of persuasion to accomplish a lot of what he wants to and needs to do, but he must aim his powers of persuasion at his Washington, D.C. audience of fellow politicians and leaders (if they think he looks good and is a good leader, then he is), at party activists and grassroots outside of Washington (so that he at least seems to represent varied interests) and at "the public," which is the largest and most diverse (and sometimes the most scrutinizing) group of all. *Of course, Congress seems to have little obvious incentive to support a president's popularity, since their seats are secure and they don't have to fear any party boss that might deny them of power. *Presidential popularity tends to be the highest right after an election, a period called the "honeymoon" between the public and Congress and the president, but the popularity is bound to drop eventually.
The power to say no
*The president's popularity may drop, but he has a huge power in the veto (which can be overridden by 2/3 majority of Congress); is ability to "say no" can be considered "executive privilege." *A president can veto a bill in two ways: a veto message is a direct statement that the president sends to Congress within ten days of receiving a bill saying that he vetoes it; he can also pocket veto a bill by not signing it AND Congress has adjourned or recessed ten or less days after the bill was introduced. -The pocket veto can only be used during certain times of the year. *If a bill is not signed or vetoed within ten days, and Congress is still in session, it automatically becomes law, but a pocket-vetoed bill must be resubmitted through Congress. i. In 1996, Congress passed a bill that let the president "veto" parts of a bill (line-item veto) that he didn't like within five days of getting it and then sending it back to Congress, which could only overrule that line-item veto w/ 2/3 majority vote, but certain types of bills are exempt from this power and a federal court has ruled this law unconstitutional. ii. Less than 4% of vetoed bills have every been overruled by Congress; such overrule is rare. *The Constitution says nothing about whether a president must divulge private communications between himself and his main advisors, and past presidents have claimed that separation of powers means that other branches don't have to know what goes on in his executive branch. *Past presidents have sometimes not spent all of the money that Congress appropriated (the Constitution says that the president simply cannot spend non-appropriated money, but it says nothing using already appropriated money), but the Budget Reform Act of 1974 required the president to spend all appropriated funds unless he told Congress which funds he would not spend and Congress agreed to let him do so.
Presidential Transition
*The presidents have been re-elected have mostly either been the Founding Fathers, presidents during wartime, or presidents during especially tranquil times, but when the country was deeply divided, presidents were rarely re-elected. *The vice president has assumed the presidency eight times due to the death of his predecessor. i. John Tyler was the first, and when he became prez, there were questions on whether he should be president in name only or actually lead the country and do all the real, gritty actions that a president should do; he decided to do the second choice, and ever since, all VP's who've assumed the presidency after a president's midterm death have done the same. iv. The VP's only official task is to preside over the Senate and vote if there's a tie, and even that job is rather boring, since ties rarely occur, so the VP is rarely there either! *There are two problems that deal with the VP as well: what if the president doesn't die but becomes too ill or handicapped to act as president, and if a VP becomes a president, who's the new VP? i. Solutions were proposed before that ranked certain Congressional members in line for succession, but the 25th Amendment most solved the dilemma by allowing the vice president to serve as "acting president" whenever the president or a majority of the cabinet members declares that the prez is unable to perform his duties to his fullest capacity and by letting a VP who becomes prez to nominate a new VP who must be approved by Congress. a. 2/3 of Congress must approve if the president disagrees w/ the VP and his cabinet over whether or not is can assume his duties or if he's too ill. *The VP nomination thing has occurred twice—and in the same term—in history: when Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew resigned amid criminal charges, Nixon chose Gerald Ford to be the new VP, and Ford rose to the presidency when Nixon resigned due to Watergate, so Ford then chose Nelson Rockefeller to be his VP; amazingly, there was little public outcry.
The presidents program
1. Once elected, a president (helped by aides) must put together a program that helps him appoint hundreds of posts, make a State of the Union address, form a complicated budget, and do other things that are duties of the president. 2. To develop policies quickly, a president will draw on interest groups (have specific plans and ideas but have narrow views), aides and campaign advisors (will test new ideas but are inexperienced), federal bureaus and agencies(know what's feasible in terms of gov't realities but promote own agencies, not others), and outside, academic, and other specialists and experts (have many good ideas but don't know the details or what is feasible). 3. A president has other constraints: lack of time (he has so much to do, so many people to see him, and so many jobs), an unexpected crisis (war, depression, attacks... usually unexpected), and the fact that federal gov't and most federal programs and the federal budget can only be changed marginally. 4. Almost every president since Herbert Hoover has tried to re-arrange the executive branch of gov't because the number of agencies that reported to them and the apparently messy manner in which they have grown has appalled them.
The Powers of the President
1. only the president of the US can: *Serve as commander in chief of the armed forces *Commission officers of the armed forces *Grant reprieves and pardons for all federal offenses except impeachment *Convene Congress in special sessions *Receive ambassadors *Take care that the laws will be faithfully executed *Wield executive power *Appoint officials to lesser offices 2. The president AND the Senate can make treaties and appoint ambassadors, judges, and high officials 3. The president and all of Congress can approve legislation. 4. The president's power didn't seem that impressive initially, but over the decades, it has come to encompass not only military powers but also management of the economy and direction of foreign affairs.
