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CH11ThePresidency.pptxThe Presidency
Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11: THE PRESIDENCY
The Presidency
CHAPTER 11: THE PRESIDENCY
In this chapter you will learn:
See how the Constitution defines the presidency.
Focus on presidential power.
Learn what presidents do.
Reflect on presidential popularity—and greatness.
Consider the personal side of the office.
Tour the Executive Office of the President, and meet the team around a president.
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Defining the Presidency
Three essential features about the American president:
The president personifies America.
More than any individual, presidents tell us who we are, and what we are becoming.
The president injects new ideas into American politics.
Our discussion of Congress emphasized the institution, the rules of the game; the presidency puts more focus on individuals and ideas.
The president has enormous powers.
That authority raises a fundamental question: Is the president too powerful for a democratic republic? Or is the office too weak to do what Americans demand of it?
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Defining the Presidency Defined by Controversy
Should the United States even have a president?
Feared executive power
Selected single president and established simple qualifications
How long should the president serve?
Debated settled on four year terms
1945 Twenty-Second Amendment limited presidents to two terms
How should the United States choose its president?
Electoral College
Round about way of electing president
Still debated: distorts popular vote
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The President’s Powers
Article 2 of the Constitution defines the presidency:
Says very little about who the president is and what he/she does
The president has three kinds of powers:
expressed in the Constitution
delegated by Congress
inherent in the role of chief executive
In theory, Congress passes laws and the president executes them.
In reality, presidents constantly negotiate the limits of their power—which often expand during crises.
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Expressed powers: Powers the Constitution explicitly grants to the president.
Delegated powers: Powers that Congress passes on to the president.
Inherent powers: Powers assumed by presidents, often during a crisis, on the basis of the constitutional phrase, “The executive power shall be vested in the president.”
Executive privilege: Power claimed by the president to resist requests for authority by Congress, the courts, or the public. Not mentioned in the Constitution but based on the separation of powers.
Executive agreements: an international agreement made by the president that does not require the approval of the Senate.
Defining the Presidency The President’s Powers
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The President’s Powers are Balanced by Congress
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Is the President Too Powerful? Imperial Presidency
Constant American theme: president has grown too mighty
Presidents constantly redefine the authority of their office
Powerful presidents become like emperors
Run roughshod over Congress
Issue secret decisions
Unilaterally deploy forces
Bypass checks and balances
Paradox: We need powerful leaders; we fear powerful leaders
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Even under the best of circumstances, it’s difficult to get major legislation through Congress because the president’s vetoes can be overridden, and Congress retains the power of impeachment.
Is the Presidency Too Powerful? A Weak Office?
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What Presidents Do
Commander in Chief
Top Diplomat
First Legislator
Chief Bureaucrat
Economist in Chief
Head of State
Party Leader
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Commander in Chief
“The president shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and the militia of the several states…”
Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring congressional approval after troops have been deployed for 60 days.
Today, the president generally asks Congress for a resolution supporting major military action.
Presidential powers have always waxed during wartime.
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Top Diplomat
The Constitution gives presidents the lead role in foreign affairs.
Presidents and their international advisers set an overall framework for the US role in the world.
Some administrations emphasize international alliances; they work closely with foreign powers and build multinational institutions.
Others prefer to go it alone—they ignore the United Nations, reject the idea of joint military action if American troops would have to serve under foreign leaders.
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The First Legislator
The Constitution includes presidents in the legislative process.
It authorizes them to:
Recommend measures for Congress’s “consideration.”
Report to Congress information on the state of the Union.
We can measure each president’s legislative success—generally referred to as the “batting average .”
When the same party controls the White House and Congress, known as unified government, the batting average is much higher —usually around .800.
When the opposition party controls Congress (divided government), the average usually falls below .500.
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Veto power: The presidential power to block an act of Congress by refusing to sign it.
Override. The process by which Congress can overcome a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
Presidents have 10 days to return the legislation to Congress with a message explaining why he or she has rejected it. If the president does nothing, the bill becomes law in ten days.
Signing Statements. These may offer the president’s interpretation of the law—one sometimes at odds with Congress’s expressed ideas.
What Presidents Do The First Legislator (cont.)
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Appointments. The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint the men and women of the executive branch of government, subject to confirmation by the Senate.
Today, the executive branch includes 15 departments and 2.7 million employees—or more than 4 million counting active-duty military.
Presidents appoint some 4,000 political appointees who direct the executive agencies.
The rest of the staff are civil servants who remain from one administration to the next.
Executive Orders. This is a presidential declaration, with the force of law, that issues instructions to the executive branch without any requirement for congressional action or approval. (The Supreme Court has the power, however, to overrule an executive order found to be unconstitutional.)
What Presidents Do Chief Bureaucrat
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Trump’s Cabinet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Donald_Trump
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Economist in Chief
Economic authority is one power the Constitution definitely does not grant the president.
However, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration seized responsibility for putting the nation back to work.
The year after Roosevelt died, Congress legislated a Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) to help guide presidents’ efforts to oversee the economy.
Every new administration crowds more economists into its ranks.
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Head of State
Dual role presidents play
Stand for the nation
Represent a party and a point of view
Presidents spend a lot of time in ceremonial role
First pitch at World Series
Spare a turkey at Thanksgiving
Light White House Christmas tree
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Presidents must perform complicated balancing acts to avoid charges of blatant partisanship (leveled by the other party) and failing to adequately support their party colleagues.
What Presidents Do Party Leader
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Theodore Roosevelt called the presidency itself a “bully pulpit” – an active president has the country’s ear, an opening to introduce and promote new ideas.
Managing the public
Presidents try to manage public perceptions of the job they are doing.
Approval ratings
They get immediate feedback from polling.
Presidential greatness
A president’s place in history, however, usually does not emerge right away.
What Presidents Do The Bully Pulpit: Introducing Ideas
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No one person can juggle so many different presidential roles; even great presidents cannot handle all their jobs well all of the time.
What Presidents Do The Impossible Job
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Presidents develop a relationship with the people, which they cultivate by going public—directly addressing citizens in order to win support.
Presidential Leadership: Success and Failure in the Oval Office Managing the Public
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Presidential Approval
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Presidential Approval Ratings
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Polls are used widely as a rough barometer of the administration’s success.
Presidential Leadership: Success and Failure in the Oval Office Approval Ratings
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The authors believe that great presidents redefine America; they reshape the way the nation sees itself.
Presidential Leadership: Success and Failure in the Oval Office Presidential Greatness
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Step 1: A New Order Rises. Outstanding leaders take over the presidency and shake up the political system.
Step 2: The Order Refreshed. The ideas begin to look out of date; the great coalition begins to unravel.
Step 3: The Old Order Crumbles. Over time, the party finds its ideas increasingly irrelevant. The old order feels outdated, a political dinosaur.
Presidential Leadership: Success and Failure in the Oval Office Greatness in Context: The Rise and Fall of Political Orders
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James Madison was guided by a fierce attachment to the Constitution that he had drafted and believed the office was greater than the man.
Richard Nixon was brilliant—and often paranoid, traits that helped him ratchet down the bitter cold war by playing off our enemies against one another.
Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories and paint a gauzy vision of American free enterprise.
The Personal Presidency Presidential Style
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14 presidents and former presidents died during the twentieth century.
11 passed away prematurely.
Eight of them fell more than seven years short of expected life spans for men of their age.
The Personal Presidency The Burden of the Office
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The executive branch is like the solar system, with the president as the sun and his appointees rotating around him.
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The Political Solar System: Presidential Appointments
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Presides over the Senate and casts a vote in case of a tie; otherwise, his responsibilities are entirely up to the president.
The vice president
Traditionally, the vice president’s primary job was to stand in the wings in case the president died.
Almost one in five presidents came to office after the death of his predecessor.
Vice presidents preside over the Senate and cast a vote in case of a tie.
The vice presidency became an important office since the Carter administration.
In recent years, vice presidents are put in charge of major administration efforts:
Dick Cheney managed the war on terror for President Bush.
Joe Biden has been a major voice on foreign policy for Barack Obama.
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The Vice President
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Members of the cabinet have two primary roles
Run executive-branch departments
Discuss policy with the president
Washington had four members, Lincoln had seven, today there are fifteen
Cabinet meetings today largely ceremonial
Inner Cabinet
Rise above the rest and shape administration policy
Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and Justice
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The Cabinet
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The Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This is the most powerful agency in the executive branch—it uses its authority over the federal budget to manage the entire executive branch. It has authority to review and “clear” anything a member of the administration says or does in public.
The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). The Council and its chair keep an eye on the whole economy; CEA staff perform economic analysis for the president: unemployment predictions, productivity measurements, economic forecasts, etc.
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The Executive Office of the President
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The National Security Council (NSC).
The NSC brings together the powerful officers who make national security policy: secretaries of state, defense, intelligence, and the treasury (economists again); the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and others whom the president selects.
The national security advisor directs the council and must work for consensus across all the different perspectives and formidable personalities: diplomatic, military, and economic.
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The Executive Office of the President (cont.)
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This group of four hundred or so advisors, aides, and associates works directly for the president, most of them in the West Wing.
At the center sits the Chief of Staff, the president’s gatekeeper, traffic cop, and coordinator.
Other important offices include speechwriters, White House counsel (the president’s official lawyer), and the legislative affairs team.
Unlike the high-ranking members of the cabinet agencies, most EOP staffers are not subject to Senate confirmation.
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The Heart of Power: The White House Office (WHO)
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Traditionally, the “First Lady” role was simply that of hostess, but Eleanor Roosevelt broke the traditional mold and pioneered a new role: the First Lady as activist.
The President’s Team: A Tour of the White House The First Spouse
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The First Spouse
Traditionally, the First Lady role was simply that of hostess.
Eleanor Roosevelt broke the traditional mold and pioneered a new role: the First Lady as activist.
Lady Bird Johnson chose “beautification” of American cities and highways.
Nancy Reagan became a spokesperson for the war on drugs.
Bill Clinton assigned his wife Hillary the signature policy initiative of his presidency: national health care reform.
Hillary Clinton went on to a successful political career.
Michelle Obama is honorary chair of President Obama’s signature White House Council for Community Solutions.
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The Oval Office reverberates with power and responsibility, but it is also full of limitations, checks, and balances.
Conclusion: The Most Powerful Office on Earth?
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The Military and How it Grew, 1820-2011
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Presidential Vetoes and Overrides in last 50 years
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Presidential Job Approval
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Is the President Too Powerful?
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An Imperial Presidency?
Unitary executive theory. This view holds that the Constitution puts the president in charge of executing the laws, and therefore no one—not Congress, not the judiciary, not even the people—may limit presidential power when it comes to executive matters.
A Weak Office?
The presidents can seem weakest when they are trying to advance domestic policy goals.
It is difficult to get major legislation through Congress. The president nominally runs the executive branch, but the bureaucracy is immense and often difficult to control.
Imperial presidency suggests the presidency is demonstrating imperial traits and republic is becoming an empire.
A deep paradox in American politics: We need powerful leaders; we fear powerful leaders.
What Do Presidents Do?
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President
Commander in Chief
Top Diplomat
First Legislator
Chief Bureaucrat
Economist in Chief
Head of State
Party Leader
Obama’s Approval Rating for first 1,400 Days Compared to the Average for Other Presidents for the first 1,400 Days
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Executive Orders Issued by Each President, Per Day in Office
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The President’s Powers Are Balanced by Congress
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Presidential Batting Average: Measuring the Proportion of Congressional Bills on Which the President Took a Position that Passed
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Rating the Presidents: 5 Independent Polls by Historians and Political Scientists
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Rating the Presidents: 5 Independent Polls by Historians and Political Scientists
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Offices in the Executive Office of the President
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