Political Science Weekly HW - Discussion #2

274 The President and the Government

151. Arnold, "Bill Clinton and the Institutionalized Presidency," 31.

152. Evan Thomas, "Acquittal: The Inside Story," Newsweek, February 22, 1999, 24-31; and Kirk

Victor and Carl M. Cannon, "Promise and Peril," National Journal. January 23,1999,170-175.

153. Jack N. Rakove, "Taking Prerogative out of the Presidency: An Originalist Perspective," Presiden-

tialStudies Quarterly 37 (March 2007): 85.

154. Rudalevige, "The Contemporary Presidency."

155. Owens, "A Post-Partisan President," UO.

156. Sinclair, "Congressional Leadership in Obama's First Tvro Years"; Robert Draper, Do Not Ask

What Good We Do: Inside the House of Representatives (New York: Free Press, 2012), xv-xviii.

157. This is the central theme ofPeterson's Legislating Together, in which he advocates a "tandem insti-

tutions" perspective on presidential-congressional relations.

CHAPTER 6

Executive Politics

President Trump displays a newly signed executive order in an early 2017 Oval Office ceremony. Trump issued more than thirty

such orders during his first one hundred days in office.

mericans commonly think of the president as the "chief executive" of the

federal government, held responsible for its many activities and responsi-

•bilities. As the federal government assumed more powers ia the twentieth

century, popular expectations rose and presidents became the focal point for citi-

zens' blame or credit for bad or good times. Activist executives m the twentieth

century—Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson in

the forefront—heightened this image of strong presidential leadership by launch-

ing major policy initiatives. Citizens imagine the president directmg the activities

of millions of federal officials. But presidents do not fully control the executive

branch. Even followmg the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington,

D.C., in 2001, when the nation seemed most unified. President George W. Bush

struggled to be master of his own house.

In the wake of9/U, President Bush and his administration took responsibility

for preventing another terrorist attack and for minimizing the consequences if one

should occur. To accomplish this goal. Bush signed legislation in November 2002

275

276 The President and the Government

creating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As he declared, "We're

taking historic action to defend the United States and protect our citizens from

the dangers of a new era."1 The mammoth new department consolidated twenty- .|

two agencies and units from other departments into a smgle entity with about

170,000 workers, making it the federal government's third biggest department.

This move was the largest single government reorganization since the creation of

the Department of Defense (DOD) in 1947.

Bush also proposed a new pay system for DHS that would replace the one cre-

ated in 1949. In Bush's view and that of many other reformers, the old system

rewarded employees' seniority rather than their perfomiance on the job. Critics

argued that the system rewarded mediocrity and caution rather than perfor-

mance and mitiative. The administration hoped to use the creation of DHS as

the occasion to introduce a new pay scheme to the rest of the federal government,

as well. As the president argued, in confronting the terrorist threat, "The new

department must be able to get the right people in the right place at the right time

with the right pay."2 That was a shorthand call for a restructuring of the federal

civil service.

Creating a huge federal bureaucracy was not the president's original solution at

all. A month after the terrorist attacks. Bush chose Gov. Tom Ridge, R-PA, to serve

as director of the Office of Homeland Security, a 100-person White House staff unit,

and to oversee the Homeland Security Council, an interdepartmental coordinating

committee designed to function much like the long-established National Security

Council (NSC). Government officials resisted when Ridge sought to coordinate

agency efforts in combating terrorism, and he was drawn mto protracted legal bat-

ties with Congress overits right to oversee his activities.3 Congressional Democrats

generated a bipartisan, bicameral proposal to create a new department instead. To

everyone's surprise. Bush suddenly endorsed the proposal as a way to regain the

initiative on this highly visible issue.

Although the turf battles over which units would join the new department

proved long and bitter. Bush ultimately got most of what he wanted, with numer-

ous offices moving into the new structure. Among the agencies that moved were

the Coast Guard (from Transportation), the Secret Service (from Treasury),4 the

Customs Semce (from Treasury),5 the Border Patrol (from Justice), the recently cre-

ated Transportation Security Administration (from Transportation),6 PEMA (the

Federal Emergency Management Agency, an independent agency)/ the Office of

Domestic Preparedness (from Justice), the National Domestic Preparedness Office

(from the FBI), the Computer Security Division (from Commerce), and the National

Executive Politics 277

Communications System (from Defense). A tiny team of White House aides led by

Bush chief of staff Andrew Card made the organization choices and avoided pres-

sure by meeting secretly in a bunker under the East Wing.8

Secretary Ridge faced an enonnous challenge: assembling a management team

on short notice and pulling all the pieces into a coherent whole. Congress posed a

major problem. According to the White House, "88 congressional committees and

subcommittees have jurisdiction over issues related to homeland security, and ...

that gives the Homeland Security Department a lot of congressional bosses to work

with—and answer to—in its drive to make America safer."9 This legislative cross

section included every single senator and 95 percent of the House members in the

107th Congress. In addition, the newly assembled pieces of the department brought

with them established relationships with organized interests that hoped to protect

the access and services they enjoyed under the old arrangements and a few newly

organized mterests as well.10

Congressional Democrats—urged on by public workers unions—opposed

Bush's proposal to give DHS greater flexibility in hirmg, paying, promoting, and

disciplining its employees. Congress approved the changes at DHS only after they

became a major campaign issue in the 2002 midtemi elections and contributed to

Democrats suffering major defeats."- DHS reduced the number of pay grades from

fifteen to five and established a fast track for high-performing workers to earn ear-

Her promotions and faster pay raises than under the old system. Unions represent-

ing government workers resisted further changes requested by Bush, and won cases

in federal district and appeals courts, forcing the Bush admmistration to scrap the

DHS system in 2008. Barack Obama's admmistration revoked all the civil service

reforms in 2010.

Like Bush with his struggles to organize homeland security, most modem presi-

dents have encountered dfficulties in their efforts to direct the executive branch,

whether it involved workmg with existing entities or creating new ones. John F.

Kennedy lamented the inertia of the State Department, and Ronald Reagan made

his campaign attack on an overgrown federal bureaucracy one of his presidency's

enduring themes. Donald Trump likewise promised to slash regulations, restruc-

ture government agencies, and "drain the swamp"—even (ia one staffer's phrase)

to achieve the "deconstrucdon of the administrative state."12

Presidents proposing to harness the potential of government to deliver much-

needed semces must overcome the cynical belief that bureaucracy is the problem,

not the solution. Bill Clinton's proposal to solve the nation's health care prob-

lems fell victim to the charge that it would create a bloated federal bureaucracy.

ays The President and the Government

And when problems plagued Healthcare.gov, the website for citizens to enroll in

federal health msurance exchanges under Obama's controversial reforms, it was

taken as another example ofadmmistrative ineptitude. A frequently seen website

message summarized critics' view of the admmistration s poor performance: The

system is down at the moment. We are experiencing technical dfficulties and hope

to have them resolved soon."13

Richard Rose, who studied the president as a manager, remarked that the "presi-

dent's title of chief executive is a misnomer; he can more accurately be described as a

nonexecutive chief."14 The essence of Rose's argument is that, even within the exec-

udve branch, presidential powers of command are limited and that a president's

success as an administrator depends greatly on the ability to win the trust of others.

Presidents therefore confront a continuing challenge. The pubUc expects them to

produce results but is unsure of government's role, not wanting it to become too

intrusive and doubting its effectiveness. Given this gap between expectations and

powers, it should not be surprismg that presidents gravitate toward instruments

of unilateral power that provide them with greater leverage over the government.

But, as noted in chapter 1, recent presidents' exercise of these unilateral powers

created controversy. And even then, presidential command does not always lead to

its immediate implementation.

In this chapter, we examiae the president's responsibilities as chief executive and

the factors that affect administrative performance. The chapter opens with a dis-

cussion of the president's executive role—its constitutional, legal, and admmistra-

tive foundations. We then explore the president's relationships with the executive

branch and the cabmet. After establishing that the president's powers of command

over the units of the executive branch are limited, we analyze the formal powers and

managerial tools that modem presidents have available for discharging admiius-

trative duties.

The President as Executive

The president's executive role is grounded in ambiguous language in Article 2

of the Constitution, which says "the executive Power" is vested in the president,

who is du-ected to "take Care that the Laws be faithfuUy executed." The presi-

dent may also "require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each

of the executive Departments" and "grant Reprieves and Pardons." Modern

presidents have tended to interpret these provisions broadly and have derived

substantial additional powers from them. In addition to these constitutionally

Executive Politics 279

based powers, presidents have received extensive delegations of statutory

authority from Congress.

Yet presidents confront a paradox. Although they enjoy considerable formal

legal powers and head a vast, complex military and civilian bureaucracy, their abil-

ity to direct that bureaucracy toward the achievement of the administration's policy

objectives and program goals is frequently limited. To understand that paradox,

we must examine the constitutional relationship of the presidency to the legislative

and judicial branches as well as the nature of the federal bureaucracy and the presi- dent's relationship to it.

In administration as in so many other areas, presidents require the coop-

eration of Congress because only Congress can authorize government pro-

grams, establish agencies to implement the programs, and appropriate funds

to finance them.15 Presidents have strong preferences about governmental

structure but find that congressional cooperation is often difficult to obtain

in this area because, regardless of party loyalties, presidents and members of

Congress have different constituency and mstitutional perspectives. There are

also occasions when the exercise of presidential power must be acceptable to

the judiciary (note, for instance, President Obama's struggle with the courts

over his second-term unmigration initiatives or President Trump's first, short-

lived travel ban" order.) In short, presidential power is not self-executing, and

it is subject to restraint.

The federal bureaucracy—which today consists of fifteen cabinet departments

and between forty and fifty special agencies, with a total workforce of more than

2 million civilian and 1.4 million active duty military personnel—is called the exec-

utive branch, but it is really the creation of the legislative branch. As noted earlier,

the Constitution references "executive departments" but doesn't say what those

departments should be, or what they should do. That is left to Congress and the

lawmaking process. When Congress establishes federal departments and agencies,

its members are responding not only to presidential needs and requests, but also to

demands and pressures from various constituency forces, interest groups, and the

general public. As a result, the structure of the federal bureaucracy tends to reflect

the political fragmentation and committee jurisdictions of Congress, which often

leads, as with homeland security, to multiple committees overseemg the activities

of the same department. Presidents do not look down upon subordinate admin-

istrative units from a position at the apex of a pyramid of authority; instead, they

confront a complex and confusing array of departments and agencies with varying

degrees of independence.

28o The President and tfae Government

In addition, presidents deal with career civil servants who staff bureaucratic

units and constitute a permanent federal government. These civil servants respond

to demands from interest groups and to direction from congressional committees

as well as to presidential leadership. Most modern presidents have entered office

believing—or they soon become convinced—that they cannot take the support and

loyalty of the bureaucracy for granted but must constantly strive to earn both.16

The president's task as the nation's chief executive, therefore, is much more than

issuing commands or finding ways to bring a large complex bureaucracy under

operational control. The president must secure congressional cooperation while

suppressing the executive branch's natural tendencies toward conflict with the

legislative branch and must give direction to the bureaucracy so that it will help

accomplish the administration's goals. As the functions of the federal government

expanded from the New Deal onward, the task of defining objectives and coordinat-

ing their achievement has become more difficult for presidents.

The President and the Executive Branch

Presidents need help in discharging their iU-defined executive power, but the

Constitution provided them with few sources of assistance. Presidents discover

quickly that the reality of their relations with the federal bureaucracy bears little

resemblance to the idealized vision that many hold of presidents issuing orders

and bureaucrats scurrying to carry them out. Presidential appointees to posts in

the government, collectively known as political executives, are expected to assist

the president. Department secretaries and agency administrators appointed by the

president are charged with directing the work of the career employees, coordinat-

mg the operations of their component bureaus, and developing and maintaining

links with other federal departments and agencies as well as with state and local

governments. The vice president, exercising his constitutional responsibility to

preside over the Senate, was originally more an of&cer of Congress than a source of

help to the president, but, as discussed below, that position changed dramatically

m the second half of the twentieth century. Today, the president's greatest assis-

tance in managing the federal bureaucracy comes from the staff housed in the

White House Office and FDR's creation, the Executive Office of the President

(EOP). Roosevelt convinced Congress to authorize the EOP to help him define

objectives; convert them into operating programs; allocate resources to the agen-

cies administering the programs; and coordinate the implementation of programs

within the federal government and among federal, state, and local governments.

Executive Politics 281

Tension among the president, presidential agents, and the bureaucracy has been

present in every modem administration. It exists, at least in part, because of what

Hugh Heclo has identified as the distmction between "political leadership in the

bureaucracy" and "bureaucratic power."17 The direction and effectiveness of the

political leadership that presidents provide depend on their personalities, lead-

ership style, and values as well as on external events and conditions. In contrast,

bureaucratic power is relatively permanent, not dependent on personalities and

transitory factors. That power belongs to the career civil servants who make up the

permanent government—sometimes termed, whether respectiully or resentfally,

the "deep state."

At least five general factors contribute to bureaucratic power and shape

presidential-bureaucratic relations: (1) the size, complexity, and dispersion of the

executive branch; (2) bureaucratic inertia and momentum; (3) executive branch

personnel; (4) the legal position of the executive branch; and (5) the susceptibility

of executive branch units to external political influence. Major consequences of the

interaction of these factors are presidential frustration and a pattern ofpolicymak-

mg often sharply at odds with the norm of democratic accountability; it is a system

that obscures those responsible for a policy and a decision.

Size, Complexity, and Dispersion of the Executive Branch

The scope of federal government activities has exploded since 1933, tremen-

dously mcreasmg the number of agencies and the range of programs they adminis-

ter. Federal spending for 2016 was $3.85 trillion, and federal civilian employees and

active duty military personnel numbered more than 3.4 million. Federal employ-

ees oversee domestic programs that reach into every community m the nation and

touch the lives of individuals from birth to death. Many of those programs are

delivered by nonfederal employees: One estimate sets the total number of jobs

associated with federal government programs in 2005 at ahnost fifteen million

when contract employees, grant recipients, and state and local employees work-

ing on government fuadrng are included, and that total has probably grown.18

Further, strategies designed to ensure national security extend U.S. military and

foreign policy activities around the world. Providing leadership and direction to

such a far-flung bureaucracy is difficult. It would be so even if the president

could command prompt and unquestioning obedience.

The multiplicity of agencies and programs creates an additional obstacle to

effective leadership. .Overlappmg jurisdictions lead in some cases to duplication of

efforts and in others to contradictory efforts; one even finds competition among

2Sz The President and the Government

government agencies. Presidents must be coordmators. When they define goals for

a policy area, they most often deal not with single administrative units but with

many. Even after twenty-two administrative units were consolidated into the DHS,

the military services, the FBI, and the CIA remained outside units whose coopera-

tion and coordination are critical to success. A rigorous review of intelligence fail-

ures that preceded the 9/11 attacks identified competition within the intelligence

community as a major problem, but the changes were modest—a new position to

coordinate the intelligence community's efforts and yet another additional intel-

ligence agency, makmg a total of sixteen.19

The tremendous size of the federal bureaucracy means its activities are widely

dispersed. Presidents, theu- aides, and their principal political appointees are at the

center of government. The people who operate programs, deliver services to indi-

viduals, and regulate the conduct of businesses and other organizations are at the

periphery. These people, most of them civil servants, are there when a new presi-

dent and staff take office and will be there after the political executives depart.

Bureaucratic Inertia and Momentum

Bureaucratic mertia means it is hard to get a new government activity started,

and once it is under way, it is even more difficult to stop it or even significantly

redirect it. In short, bureaucracies at rest tend to stay at rest and bureaucracies m

motion tend to stay in motion."20 Much of this inflexibiUty arises because oforgani-

zational routmes—prescribed operating procedures that have worked successfully

in the past—or interest group efforts to preserve established programs.

The momentum of ongoing programs especially frustrates presidents.

Government commitments are reflected m public laws, the amount of money aUo-

cated for those activities in annual appropriations, and the number of civil service

and military employees who carry out the activities. In 2016, mandatory expendi-

tures constituted nearly 70 percent of the government's budget.21 The principal

mandatory items included interest on the national debt; entitlement programs

such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and farm subsidies; federal redrement

and veterans' benefits; and unemployment compensation. Even the remaining, dis-

cretionary portion of the budget is highly resistant to cuts because of support from

groups benefiting from those expenditures. Presidents can influence the shape of

the federal budget, but major changes usually require years to be implemented.

From one year to the next, presidents tend to be limited to mcremeatal changes.

Given their fixed terms of office and the usual scope ofthek objectives, presidents

find the incremental adjustments possible through annual budgeting inadequate.

Executive Politics 283

For members of the permanent government, the time perspective is much different;

they can afford to be patient. In the budget process, they fight to maintam their

"base," which is their current appropriation, and to add as large an mcrement to it

as possible.22 Over time, small annual increases are transformed into large perma-

nent gains. Bureaucratic momentum therefore works to the advantage of the per-

manent government and acts as a constraint on presidents who attempt to counter

it. President Reagan and his successors tried to overcome the effects of incremental

budgeting by means of a top-down process that restricted total government spend-

ing and forced agencies and their supporters to accept cuts or limited growth.23 The

Republican Congresses after 2010 adopted another budgetary tactic of the 1980s,

the "sequester": automatic budget cuts that reduce the size and reach of govern-

ment, though the cuts come only from discretionary spending.

The large number of career federal employees pressures the president to main-

tain ongoing programs. Major reductions in personnel or redirection of their activi-

ties are economically and politically costly. People will oppose actions that threaten

to deprive them of their jobs or that require them to move, undergo additional

training, or reduce their sense of security and importance. Most presidents can

make only modest adjustments in the size and mission of the federal workforce.

Bill Clinton was somewhat more successful in this regard than other modem presi-

dents, eventually eluninating more than 300,000 jobs at the end of seven years as

part of the "reinventing government" effort led by Vice President Al Gore.24

Bureaucratic Personnel

Presidents must depend on both political appointees and career officials to

operate the federal bureaucracy. Until 1883, when the Pendleton Act created the

federal civil service, no distinction existed between the two groups. Presidents

could theoretically appoint all members of the federal bureaucracy, a spoils

system of tangible rewards for party members who had supported the election

winner. With the creation and steady expansion of the civil sa-vice system,

which opened government jobs to aU citizens based on their qualifications, presi-

dential control of government personnel declmed, and the characteristics and

roles of appointed and career ofHcials became more distinctive, often hindering

presidential direction of programs. As the civil service became more professional-

ized and protected from political pressure, its members became more resistant to

presidential pressure.

The political executives—those appointed by the president and charged with

directing the careerists—are a weak substitute for the old patronage-based system

zS4 The President and the Government

and constitute what Hugh Heclo has called a "government of strangers."25 Aside

from cabmet officers, a few important subcabinet appomtees, and the heads of

major mdependent agencies, these political executives are largely unknown to the

president and one another. Only loosely do they constitute a presidential team able

to provide direction to the bureaucracy. "Although party is still the glue that seems

to hold administrations together, this glue s consistency is much thinner than ever

before and its holding power is greatly reduced."26

Cabinet selection involves the president directly in an attempt to build support

for the administration, normally by including representatives of various constit-

uencies in the party and the country.27 Presidents sometimes appoint personal

friends to especially unportant cabinet departments because of the close coun-

seling relationship involved;28 But selection of other political executives is affected

by multiple and often conflicting pressures: loyalty to the president; party mem-

bership; technical competence; the wishes of the cabinet member under whom the

appointee will serve; a demographic balancing act incorporating region, race, and

gender; and the demands of congressional members, interest groups, and state

and local party leaders. Moreover, anyone subject to Senate confirmation must be

acceptable to the relevant committee members; usually this has meant having a

sparkling clean financial and personal background.

When done with care and planning, recruiting people to serve m an admia-

istration has the potential to be an instrument of control over policy; a tool of

administrative management; and an important component of presidential rela-

tions with Congress, interest groups, and political parties. Consequently, the

process is highly political. The burden placed on a newly elected president to

get a "team" in place is enormous and starts practically from scratch. As Joel

Aberbach and Bert Rockman pomt out, "When a new president setdes in, there

is a need to recreate the executive personnel system in a far more extensive way

than is typically the case in other developed democracies."29 Presidents since

Dwight D. Eisenhower have used personnel staffs located in the White House to

run the appointment process, a group now more formally identified as the OfBce

of Presidential Personnel.30 The personnel process is always chaotic at the start

of a new administration because of the many positions to be filled, pressures for

jobs from campaign workers and party members, and uncertainty about how to

proceed. The number ofmqmries from job seekers can be crushing, reachmg as

many as 1,500 a day.31 Eventually the search becomes more systematic,32 and the

office typically will coordinate the filling of about 7,500 positions during a presi-

dential term, with many having to be filled multiple times because of turnover.33

Executive Politics 285

Over time, centralization of appointment decisions in the Office of Presidential

Personnel has mcreased presidential control and bureaucratic responsiveness,

but the consequences have been costly. As Thomas Weko documented, centraliza-

tioa permits job seekers, interest groups, members of Congress, and campaign

contributors to press their claims directly on the White House staff, transferring

into the White House conflicts once waged outside it, dminishing the unportance

of substantive programmatic considerations, and provokmg conflict between the

appointments staff and the executive departments and agencies.34 Indeed, the

early days of the Trump admmistration were marked by sharp arguments between

White House staff and multiple Cabinet secretaries over who those secretaries'

subordiaates would be.35 The process also depends on an active president who

provides sustained support for the selection of appointees. President Reagan

excelled in this regard. The Reagan White House exercised tight control over

recruitment, filling sensitive positions with loyal individuals committed to the

president's ideology. Cabinet members could not conduct mdependent searches

for subcabinet ofBcials. Prospective appointees were screened for policy views,

political and personal backgrounds, and, if considered necessary, expertise. The

result was tighter control over the executive branch and greater cohesion within it

than other modern presidents have achieved.36

Bill Clinton's experience illustrates the difficulty presidents encounter. The

Clinton personnel operation had almost three hundred employees during the

transition and more than one hundred in the Presidential Personnel Office in

March 1993. The operation's objective was to create a competent staff that also

responded to the claims and demands of campaign workers and contributors and

represented the diverse blocs, movements, and constituencies that had brought

electoral victory. The operation's political success was reflected in the diversity of

the appointees, recruited to reflect "ethnicity, gender and geography" in a cabinet

that "looked like America."37 The preoccupation with diversity, ethical concerns,

and a series of botched nommations, however, resulted in a slowed appointment

pace that brought criticism from Congress, Democratic constituency groups, and

the media.38

Because the outcome of the 2000 election long remained in question, George

W. Bush's search for personnel got off to a late start. Even so, the administration

was only a week behind Clinton's record in selecting the cabinet and was actually

faster in naming the White House staff.39 But there were other sources of delay. At

the one-hundred-day mark. Bush was well behind Reagan and Clinton in getting

appointees in place. With 488 top appointments to make. Bush had announced 177

286 The President and the Government

candidates, but only 60 names had been submitted to the Senate, and of those, only

29 had been confirmed.

Obama's transition staff began to identify possible appointees before the elec-

tion, and the president-dect began reviewing dossiers on top prospects soon after

the election.40 After Thanksgiving, senior members of the White House staff were

announced first, and Obama then named "teams" of advisers for economic and

national security policy with other domestic appointments following. The admin-

istration established very strict rules against fomier lobbyists working in agencies

they had previously lobbied and precluded appomtees from lobbying the adminis-

tration after they left government for the duration of the Obama administration,

perhaps discouraging some job seekers. Nonetheless, they provided waivers from

these rules for some appointees.

Scrutiny of nominees' records was especially close.41 Candidates were required

to fill out a sixty-three-item questionnaire that asked, along with their employment

history, whether they had ever written an embarrassing e-mail. The materials were

then inspected (vetted is the Washington term) by the White House, the FBI, the

Internal Revenue Service QRS), the Office of Government Ethics, and the Senate

committees that hold hearings on each candidate requiring confirmation.

An unusually large number of Obama's mitial cabinet nominees encoun-

tered problems being confirmed. Three withdrew and another survived a scare,

as described later. In the wake of these problems, the White House moved even

more slowly on subcabinet appointments. By the end of March—two months into

an administration confronting an historic economic challenge—only one of the

top seventeen posts in the Treasury Department had been filled, the secretary,

prompting a Brookings Institution publication to describe Secretary Geithner as

"Home Alone."42 The pace picked up, but by August, fewer than half of the admin-

istration's top five hundred jobs had been filled.43 One cabinet position remained

vacant for six months, and eighteen months after the administration had started,

25 percent of its top positions were vacant, partly because oace-fUled positions

were reopening.

The Trump adminisfa-ation, however, made the Bush and Obama experiences

seem rapid-fire. The Presidential Transitions Improvements Act of 2015 had pro-

vided candidates with additional resources to prepare well ahead of election day.

However, the work done by the Trump transition team during the fall—identifying

some 300 candidates for various government positions—was discarded when the

president-elect removed its chau-, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), immediately after

the election. Christie was replaced with vice president-elect Mike Pence, who

Executive Politics 287

began more or less anew.44 The resulting process was carried out less systemati-

cally and largely in public, with prospective nommees for cabinet positions sum-

moned to Trump Tower in New York for mterviews. With no personnel chief in

place until late January, consideration ofsubcabinet candidates languished.45 By

early May, of 556 key positions identified by the Partnership for Public Service,

no one had been named to 464; only 41 people had been formally nominated.

A parallel study found just 45 nominees for the 920 jobs it tracked, meaning

the administration was runnmg about a month behind its predecessors in that

regard.46

Further, with each new administration, the confirmation process has grown

longer. Some problems are self-inflicted. Tom Daschle, nommated by Obama to be

secretary of the Health and Human Services Department and slated to play the lead-

ing role in health care reform, withdrew after reports that he had failed to pay taxes

on a limousine service provided by a client. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner s

confirmation was slowed because he had failed to pay taxes on some of his previ-

ous mcome, an especially unfortunate problem because Geithner would oversee the

IRS in his new job. Eight years later, prospective Labor Secretary Andrew Puzder

withdrew from consideration after criticisms were levelled at his business prac-

tices and personal behavior. To move faster, early Trump appointees were largely

announced before internal vetting had been completed or ethics forms submitted;

in some cases this led to revelations durmg Senate consideration that complicated

their confirmations. At least four subcabinet members withdrew their nomina-

tions, often because separating themselves from their business mterests to avoid

conflicts of interest proved too arduous.47

The political executives who successfully navigate this gauntlet are often ama-

teurs in the vicious world of Washington politics, lacking the political knowledge

and substantive skills needed to provide effective leadership. They quickly discover

their dependence on top-level career executives and lower-ranking civil servants for

infonnation and advice. That support is obtained only by paying a price, however,

in the form of loyalty to the agency and support for its programs within the admin-

istration, before Congress, and with the public. Members of the presidents team

suddenly find themselves striking a balance between the often-conflicdng claims of

the White House and the agencies they lead. In general, it takes twelve to eighteen

months for political executives to master their jobs. Their average tenure, however,

is only two years. The high turnover rates make it difficult to develop teamwork

within departments and agencies. Cabinet secretaries are continually adapting to

new assistants, and people, on the same administrative level barely get to know one

288 The President and the Government

another. One result is that expectations and roles are in flux, and coordination and

control are problematic.

Political executives, who look upward to the president for support and direction

and downward to the permanent government for support and services, are imper-

feet instruments for presidential control of the bureaucracy. They can best serve the

president by winning the trust of the careerists, but to do so means establishing a

considerable degree of independence from the White House.

Conflicts between the White House and the career executives arise for under-

standable reasons. The relatively secure tenure of upper-level civil serrants

(as opposed to the expendability and shorter tenure of political executives) aUows

them to take a more gradual approach to resolving problems and to pursue their

objectives obliquely and by indireetion, generating less opposition. In contrast,

political executives, urged on by the White House, tend to pursue their goals quite

directly and to see virtue m conflict. In addition, civil servants must remain politi-

cally neutral to remain civil servants; they are therefore cautious about becoming

identified with a political party or appointee. Presidendal appointees, many of

whom are unfamiliar with bureaucratic ways, often mistake such caution for oppo-

sition or disloyalty. This viewpoint is reinforced by the high value career execu-

tives place on mamtaming their relationships with clientele group representatives,

congressional members and staff, and individuals outside the Washington com-

munity who are involved in, or knowledgeable about, their agencies' programs.

To correct perceived deficiencies in the career service and to increase presiden-

tial control over the higher ranks of the civil service. Jimmy Carter's administra-

tion engineered the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA). The

CSRA established the Senior Executive Service (SES), a professional managerial

corps of career civil servants whose members are eligible for financial perfonnance

bonuses. It also increased tHe ability of political executives to transfer career offi-

cials withm and between agencies and to raise the number ofnoncareensts in the

SES and lower positions.48 Another provision of the CSRA replaced the three-

person bipartisan Civil Service Commission with the single-headed Office of

Personnel Management (OPM), which gave the president more control over the

career service. Reagan's first director of the OPM, Donald J. Devine, aggressively

implemented a partisan vision of leadership.49 Neither of Reagan's immediate

successors, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, used politicizatioa of the career

service as extensively as Reagan did to direct the executive branch.

These Carter-era reforms have come under admmista-ation and congressional

scrutiny.50 George W. Bush's administration originally challenged civil service

Executive Politics 289

practices in security-related departments (DHS and DOD) and then proposed a

management agenda that stressed evaluating agency performance in achieving

five govemment-wide initiatives and broadcasting the results publicly on a web-

based scorecard.51 The most controversial feature of the agenda was requiring that

outside companies be invited to compete for contracts to provide "commercial

activities performed by government workers, a process similar to "contracting

out or "outsourcmg." Red flags went up on Capitol Hill and in government agen-

des when it seemed the Bush administration was aiming to open nearly 900,000

government positions to competitive bidding. Although the final effort was signifi-

cantly smaller than originally feared, many observers remained concerned about

the motives behind the Bush effort.52

The Obama administration made it known even before assummg office that it

would reverse the Bush administration's efforts to contract out government pro-

grams. Initially the administration reduced pressures on the civil service; later, it

streamlined the hiring process and considered more far-reaching reforms such as

reducing the number of civil service levels and mti-oducing bonus pay. The adminis-

tration also faced the problem of widespread worker stress triggered by reductions

m the federal budget—federal wages were frozen for several years after 2009—and

attacks by congressional opponents of "big government."

President Trump, more sympathetic to that line of argument, imposed an imme-

diate hiring freeze upon taking office. When that was lifted, in April 2017, Trump's

budget director ordered agencies to submit plans that would unplement both short-

and long-term workforce reductions and "maximize employee performance."53

Legal Arrangements

The ambiguous legal position of the executive branch is the fourth factor that

affects a president's control over the bureaucracy. Although the Constitution

charges presidents with responsibility for executing the laws, their legal position

as chief executive is somewhat unclear because Congress has—with presidential

approval—delegated authority to, and imposed duties directly on, other admmis-

trative ofificials. In some cases, such as independent regulatory commissions and

the Federal Reserve Board (see chapter 9), presidents have no formal power to direct

agency actions or set agency policy, nor to remove appointees with fixed terms from

office. Presidential influence is thus based on budgetary and appointment powers

.and persuasive abUities. For cabinet members, heads of independent agencies, and

other political executives with operating authority to whom Congress has directly

delegated power, the situation is ambiguous. As chief executive, the president, by

z9o The President and the Government

virtue of the Constitution's "take care" clause and the ability to fire recaldtrant

appointees who "serve at the pleasure of the president" (see below), can command

the decisions of subordinates. In domg so, however, the president risks confronta-

tion with Congress and with the clientele groups and mdividuals affected by the

administrative units involved. In addition, the Supreme Court long ago ruled that

the president must not interfere with the performance of a "purely ministerial" duty

that does not mvolve the exercise of discretion or judgment.54 Nor may the presi-

dent prevent the execution of the law by subordinates.

Congress has provided administrative officials with broad delegations of

discretionary authority because legislation can seldom be drafted in sufficient

detail to cover all contingencies. Legislators also have made vague and general

grants of power because it is politically advantageous to shift difficult and poten-

tiaUy unpopular decisions to the bureaucracy. The Supreme Court has approved

such delegations with the proviso that they be accompanied by clear statutory

guidelines.55 The Court's insistence on specific statutory standards has, however,

seldom been followed by Congress or by the lower courts.56 The standards the

Court uses have tended to be vague and unspecific, such as "just and reasonable

rates," "excess profits," and "the public interest, convenience, and necessity." In

spite of judicial review of the fairness of administrative procedures and judicial

reference to the legislative history of statutes as found in congressional commit-

tee hearings, reports, and floor debates, administrative officials retam substan-

tial discretionary authority that complicates the president's task of controllmg

the bureaucracy.

Susceptibility to External Influence

Although presidents try to impose control on the federal bureaucracy, the

effort frequently falls short. The reach of appointees chosen on the basis ofper-

sonal or party loyalty is limited. As a result, the federal bureaucracy is susceptible

to other outside forces and depends upon them for political support. For some

agencies, outside support is essential when a president fundamentally challenges

their programs or ranks them low on the admmistration's priority list, which

may threaten their funding. In addition, executive branch units confronted with

external criticism and political pressure may find litde support within an admin-

istration concerned with negative publicity and political fallout. If presidential

support is lacking, the agency must look elsewhere for help in maintaining its

authority, funding, and personnel. It turns to the public, especially to the mdi-

viduals and groups affected by its programs, and it turns to Congress, particularly

Executive Politics 291

the committees or subcommittees with jurisdiction over its legislative authoriza-

tions and appropriations.

The regulations that agencies promulgate and enforce, or the benefits and ser-

vices they deliver, provide the basis for the development of enduring ties between

them and their clientele groups. An agency without a weU-organized clientele is in

a precarious position. Clientele groups can publicize an agency s accomplishments

and defend it against attack. In exchange, the agency administers its programs with a manifest concern for the clientele's interests. The agency consults with clientele

group officials and with individual notables attentive to its activities. Such outsid-

ers often participate in agency decision making through informal personal contacts

and advisory councils and panels. Agencies seldom draft guidelines and regulations

or award grants without extensive external participation and consultation. There

is alsp a two-way flow of personnel between agencies and clientele organizations.

These mutually beneficial relations are characteristic of most domestic policy areas

in the federal government.

For example, the National Education Association (NEA) and several other

education interest groups provide support and protection to the Department of Education in exchange for access and information. The NEA led the congressional

effort to elevate the former U.S. Office of Education to departmental status in 1979

and the battle to prevent the abolition of the fledgling department during the

Reagan administration. Department of Education political executives have found

employment with the NBA and other education interest groups; on occasion, those

lobbies have helped to recruit or have provided agency staffers.

Agencies also find it easy and convenient to develop strong ties to the coagres-

sional committees or subcommittees that oversee them. Congressional requests

for consideration on appointments and localized grants, suggestions concern-

ing program administration, and inqmries on behalf of constituents are quickly

acknowledged. Congressional mfluence with the agencies strengthens the com-

mittee members in their constituencies.57 Bureaucrats use their connections with

committee members to effect changes in their statutory authority and gain favora-

ble treatment during budget negotiations. Agencies may use their committee ties

to obtain more funds than the president has recommended or to modify thek

activities in a way not fully in accord with presidential preferences.

All of these factors we have reviewed provide centrifagal forces puUing agencies

away from White House attempts to centcalize control. Agencies are not, however,

totally resistant to presidential directives; agencies and the president need each

other to accomplish their goals. If the true test of presidential power is the power to

292 The President and the Government Executive Politics 293

persuade, one of the best measures of an agency's strength is the degree to which a president must "bargain with it in order to secure its cooperation."58

The President and the Cabinet

Most modem presidents have come to office announcing their intention to

make more extensive use of the cabinet as a collective dedsion-making body than

the previous incumbent did, pledges generally applauded by the media and aca-

demics. Yet, with the partial exception of Eisenhower, presidents have not used

their cabinets as vehicles of collective leadership. As MaryAnne Borrelli summa-

rizes, Cabinet government is a promise made by candidates, an ideal endorsed by presidents-elect, and a practice abandoned by presidents."59

This gap between expectation and experience suggests the public and most

political leaders lack understanding of the cabinet. In point of fact, the Constitution

places executive authority, ultimately, in the^resident alone. The notion ofcoUec-

tive leadership or coUegial leadersMp—typicaUy found among cabinet mem-

bers in parliamentary systems, who share leadership responsibility as a group—is

incompatible with constitutional reality and inconsistent with American practice.

The president is not fiirst among equals; rather, he (or she) is the person in charge.

Cabinet members are presidential appointees, serving at the president's pleasure.

The president is not obliged to consult them as a group or to act according to their

preferences. As Abraham Lincohi reportedly said when announcing the result of a

show of hands m his cabinet, "Seven nays and one aye. The ayes have it." The aye,

of course, was Lincoln's.60 Colin PoweU, George W. Bush's first secretary of state,

was reputed to have lost many batdes over policy to administration hard-liners. He explained, "In the end, the president decides and we execute."61

The cabinet has no formal constitutional or legal standing. It exists by custom,

and presidents may use it as litde or as much as they see fit. Clinton met with his

entire cabinet only twice from the beginning of 1998 to May 1999.62 According to

White House chief of stafFAndrew Card, George W. Bush's cabinet met about once

every two to three months during the &st term.63 The Bush system, however, was

designed to implement White House directives, not to facilitate consultation, which

became dear when the White House staJffunit responsible for coordinating cabinet

input was "effectively eliminated" in the second term.64 During his two tenns in

office, Obama held only 29 cabinet meetings.

After two years in office, Obama's cabinet secretaries complained bitterly about

being unable to influence administration policy or reach the president. Obama's

new White House chief of staff. Bill Daley, made a number of changes on the heels

of those already introduced by Pete Rouse, acting chief of staff.65 To Washington

observers, the complaints were familiar. White House aides dominated policy dis-

cussions, a tendency strengthened by the cohort of so-called policy czars (see below)

who were charged with coordinating action on specific areas of administration con-

cern. White House aides, in turn, complained about the poor performance of many

cabinet secretaries who strayed from the official administration message or failed to

follow through on assignments. So, too, were the solutions familiar: more face time

with the president and a White House staff to coordinate commumcatioa with the

cabinet. Briefly, cabinet secretaries had cause for optimism: Daley, a former secre-

tary of commerce, was likely to understand the problem from both sides. But Daley

left his White House job after only one year and the problems continued into the

second term. Former defense secretary Robert Gates was not alone in complaining

that "It's in the increasiag desire of the White House to control and manage every

aspect" of what he saw as his departmental business.66

Yet the cabinet does have political significance. Members are often the principal

spokespersons for administration policy. They are also the top political executives

expected to provide direction for those federal commitments deemed so unportant

as to warrant cabinet-level status. Management tasks may be growing more impor-

tant to cabinet members as their service in the job has become longer. Whereas the

average tenure of cabinet members in Richard Nkon's shortened admmistration

was 1.73 years, the like figure for Clinton's cabinet members was 4.08 years, 3.59

years for George W. Bush's, and 4.72 years for Obama's.67 Finally, cabinet composi-

tion has great symbolic value as a means of representing major social, economic,

and political, constituencies in the administration's highest councils.68 Newly

elected presidents generally try to select cabinet members whose presence will unify

those constituencies behind the new admmistration.

Political experience, group identification, and technical expertise are important

criteria for selecting cabinet members. Appointees to head certain departments,

such as agriculture, generally must be acceptable to clientele groups. In choosing

the secretaries of defense and the Treasury, presidents may give special weight to

the candidates' expertise and experience. Generalist administrators, however,

often are named to head the Departments of Commerce, Health and Human

Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation. A study cover-

ing eight administrations found that on average, two-thirds of presidents' initial

cabinet appomtees since FDR have been "Washington outsiders" less famiUar with

their departments' program responsibilities and that presidents tend to appouit

294 The President and the Government

more experienced managers ("insiders") as replacements for their first picks.

Similarly, one finds the emphasis on group relations and "liaison backgrounds

early in administrations with the percentage of'generalists" increasing as the term

progresses.69 While Donald Tmmp's initial appointees included high-profile busi-

nessmen with no previous experience in government—most notably Rex Tillerson

at State, Steven Mnuchin at Treasury, and Wilbur Ross at Commerce—it also

included former governors, members of Congress, and senior military officers, as

described below. Most modem presidents develop close ties with the appointees

Thomas Cronin refers to as the inner cabinet—the heads of the Departments of

State, Defense, Treasury, Justice, and now Homeland Security. The activities and

responsibilities of these departments are of the highest priority—foreign relations,

civil rights, national security, the condition of the economy, and the administration

of justice. Moreover, they cut across the concerns of the public and all members of

Congress. These are the matters that dominate the president's time and attention.70

The heads of the other departments usually constitute the outer cabinet.71 Their

departments have more sharply focused activities, and theu- leaders find themselves

acting as advocates for clientele and congressional interests withm the administra-

tioa.72 Frequently, those pressures conflict with the president's broader priorities.

President Obama depended heavUy on government insiders to staffhis initial

cabinet, people with previous elective or appointed experience. All five secretar-

ies heading inner cabinet departments had extensive experience in government

service, and two were elected officials. One, Secretary of Defense Gates, was a

holdover from the Bush administration and one of two Republicans included

m the new cabinet; the other was Ray LaHood, and a third had been invited to

join. The remainder of the cabinet included three governors, two House mem-

bers, and one senator. Appomtees without previous elected experience were

notable for their technical expertise—a Nobel laureate m physics, chief execu-

tive of one of the nation's largest public school systems, a retired general, and

an expert in urban housing—and three of these had also worked for govern-

ment m the past. Obama contmued the trend established under Clinton and

George W. Bush of appointing more women to the cabmet, four of the initial

fifteen members, and these nominees arguably brought even stronger qualifica-

tions to their positions.73 Donald Trump's mitial cabinet paid less heed to gen-

der and ethnic diversity concerns; he named just two women, one of whom was

Asian-American, along with one African-Americaa man. No Latinos were named

originally, but Alexander Acosta was chosen to replace Labor secretary-designate

Puzder after he withdrew. His inner cabmet mixed businessmen (at State and

Executive Politics 295

TABLE 6-1 Backgrounds of the Tramp Cabinet through April 2017

Appointee Former Public Position

Inner Cabinet

Secretary of Defense

James N. Mattis (1/20/17-)

Attorney General

Jefferson B. Sessions (2/8/17-)

Secretary of State

RexW.TMerson(2/l/17-)

Secretary of the Treasm-y

SteveuT. Mnuchin (2/13/17-)

Secretary of Homeland Security

John F.KeUy (1/20/17-)

Outer Cabinet

Secretary of Agriculture

George E. ("Sonny") Perdue m (4/24/17-)

Secretary of Commerce

WilburL. Rossjr. (2/27/17-)

Secretary of Education

Elisabeth ("Betsy") DeVos (2/7/17-)

Secretary of Energy

Rick Perry (3/2/17-)

Secretary of Health and Human Serrices

Thomas E. Price (2/10/17-)

Secretary of Housing and Urban

Development

Benjamin S. Carson (3/2/17-)

Secretary of the Interior

RyanK.Zinke(3/V17-)

Secretary of Labor

R. Alexander Acosta (4/27/17-)

Secretary of Transportation

Elaine L Chao (1/31/17-)

Secretary of Veterans ASairs

David Shulkin (2/13/17-)

Retired general, U.S. Marine Corps

U.S. senator from Alabama

CEO, Exxon-Mobil

Hedge fund investor, banker

Retired general, U.S. Marine Coips

former Governor of Georgia

Private equity investor

Education activist and philanthropist

former Governor of Texas

U.S. repieseutadve from Georgia

retired surgeon, author

u.s.

Law school dean; fomier member, National Labor Relations Board

former U.S. Secretary of Labor; former deputy

U.S. secretary offtansportation

Undersecretary of Veterans Affairs

(Continued)

296 The President and the Government

TABLE 6-1 (Continued)

Appointee Former Public Position

Nondepartment Cabinet-Level Positions

Vice President

Michael R. Pence

Ambassador to the United Nations

Nimrata ("NiMd") Haley (1/24/17-)

EPAAdnumstrator

E. Scott Pruitt(2/17/17-)

Office of Management and Budget

(0MB) Director

John Michael ("Mick") Mulvaney (2/16/17-)

I7.S. TOrade Representative

Robert E. Lighter (5/U/17-)

White House OuefofStaiBF

Reinhold ("Reince") Preibus (1/20/17-)

Governor of Indiana, former U.S. rep.

Governor of South Carolina

Attorney General, Oklahoma

U.S. representative from South Carolma

Attorney; deputy U.S. trade rep., Reagan administration

Chairman, Republican National Committee

SOITRCE: Compiled by authors using public sources.

Treasury) with retired generals (at Defense and Homeland Security), with one

elected of&dal—Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a senator and early endorser of

Trump's candidacy. The remainder of the roster ranged from former governors

(Rick Perry, Sonny Perdue) and members of Congress (Tom Price, Ryan Zinke)

to newcomers (Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos). Only one new secretary had extensive

executive branch experience outside the military: new transportation secretary

Elaine Chao, who had served as George W. Bush's secretary of labor and as his

father's deputy secretary of transportation.

Presidents tend to have considerable turnover in theu- cabinet membership

over time. Harry S. Truman had thirty-five different department secretaries during

his nearly eight years in office at a time when there were only eleven departments.

George W. Bush also had thirty-five during his two terms, serving in fifteen depart-

ments. Obama's total was thirty-two, the last change coming in the Department of

Education in March 2016.74

Presidents often try to use the cabinet as a dedsion-making body early in their

administrations, but most eventually abandon the effort and rely on the White

House staff instead.75 They find that most cabinet members are concerned primar-

ily with issues affecting their departments and that competition for the president's

Executive Politics 297

attention often occurs between cabinet members. Individual cabinet members

feel loyal to the president and to the permanent governments within their depart-

ments. These conflicting loyalties inhibit the development of an informal sense

of unity and purpose, without which the cabinet cannot realize its potential as a

formal advisory body and policymaking mechanism.76 Thus, cabinet meetings are

unsatisfactory devices for focused, analytical discussion of major issues. At best

they can serve as forums for informal discussion of issues and problems' and for

the exchange of information. Presidents and their aides in the EOP are the only

source of cohesion and policy coordination. In most administrations, one or two

cabinet members tend to stand out and to develop close ties with the president.

During Reagan's second term, Attorney General Edwin Meese ffl and Secretary

of the Treasury James A. Baker HI enjoyed considerable leeway in pursuing their

own agendas without aggressive interference from the White House staff, provided

they did not conflict with the president's ideological precepts.77 Treasury secretar-

ies Lloyd Bentsen and Robert Rubin enjoyed independent stature in the Clinton

administration because of their political and business experience, respectively.78

At the start of George W. Bush's administration, observers noted the influence

of Vice President Dick Cheney, whose broad responsibilities and access apparently

gave him more clout than any of the cabinet members, especially after Bush publicly

contradicted positions taken by Secretary of State Colin Powell and EPA admin-

istrator Christine Todd Whitman (one of the first members of the original group

to leave) during his first one hundred days. After 9/U, Bush became a wartime

president, a development that narrowed his circle of cabinet interactions.79 The

"war cabinet"—Cheney, Card, Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice,

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of the Treasury Paul OTSIeill, and

CIA dkector George Tenet—met daily with the president to manage the immediate

aftermath of the disaster and prepare the nation for a war on terrorism.80

Presidents generally look beyond the cabinet for policy advice. Since its creation

in 1947, the NSC and its staff have been used extensively by presidents for foreign

and military policy matters (see chapter 10). In economic policy areas, presidents

work closely with the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Office of

Management and Budget (0MB) director, the secretary of the Treasury, and the

chair of the Federal Reserve Board (see chapter 9). In domestic policy areas, which

involve primarily the outer cabmet departments, domestic policy staffs and 0MB

have provided assistance to the president in policy formulation (see chapter 8),

and cabinet committees, interagency committees, and policy councils have been

employed to coordinate policymaking and implementation.

298 The President and the Government

Cabmet committees, usually appointed on an ad hoc basis to handle specific

problems, can focus quickly on them. Interagency committees, which operate

mostly at the agency and subcabinet levels, may achieve a measure ofcoordmation,

but their work is often hampered by competition between agencies and by a lack of status and visibility.

Policy councils help presidents highlight particular problems. Nixon iatro-

duced a Domestic Council designed as an analogue to the NSC, and Gerald R.

Ford created the Economic Policy Board (EPB). Both units have appeared under

various names in successor administrations. Reagan established seven cabmet

councils in addition to the NSC to help move issues upward to the cabinet and

then the president. That group was later reduced to two: the Economic Policy

CouncU and the Domestic Policy Council (DPC). George H. W. Bush continued to

utilize the Economic Policy Council and the DPC but with apparently limited effec-

tiveness due to squabbling and nvakies among his advisers.81 Clinton replaced

the EPC with a higher level domestic poUcy unit, the National Economic Council

CNEC), though he also relied on high-level advisers such as Ira Magaziner, George

Stephanopoulos, and First Lady HiUary Rodham Clinton. The fragmentation of

advice that this structure produced reflected CImton's deske to be at the center of

an informal, coUegial policymaking process, which he ran like a continuous semi-

nar. With respect to selling and implementing his policy choices, however, Clinton

preferred a more formal structure.82 A reorganization eighteen months into his

term (described later in this chapter) sought to rein in Clinton's freewheelmg style

more generally.

Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush, retained the DPC and the NEC as

White House coordinating units and staffed each, at the outset, with.ttusted cam-

paign advisers. Consistent with all other presidents since Truman, he also utilized

the NSC structure to help coordinate national security policy. Obama's principal—

though not unprecedented—innovation was heavy reliance on "policy czars." These

were White House aides given broad responsibility to coordinate major policy ini-

tiatives that straddled federal agencies, build cooperation with state and localgov-

emments, and create partnerships with the private sector.83 Positions were carved

out for energy and climate change, health care reform, economic policy, technol-

ogy promotion, urban affairs, auto industry restructuring ("car czar"), financial

bailouts, terrorism, drug control, and Native American policy.84 In essence, the

president was expanding a strategy dating to Woodrow WUson: to assign a White

House aide the responsibility to coordinate government action across depart-

ments and agencies. In some areas, the aide would enjoy staff support and prestige

Executive Politics 299

associated with a long-standing council, such as the Council of Economic Advisers,

but in other areas the effort would be new. Much depended on the personalities of

the assistants and how cooperative the cabinet secretaries would prove to be. (Also

see chapter 8.) Advisers left the White House as tasks were completed, but Obama

kept returning to the strategy. For example, m 2014, amid growing criticisms over

an apparently incoherent response to the mounting Ebola crisis, Obama named

another "czar" responsible for Grafting a coherent government-wide response.85

The early days of the Trump White House kept the various policy councils in place.

NEC director Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive, quickly established

himself as a trusted adviser. Michael Flynn, Trump's first pick as national secu-

rity adviser, was tarred by scandal and replaced after less than a month by a weU-

respected active-service general, H. R. McMaster. In general the early days of the

administration were marked by the maneuvering of various factions seeking mflu-

ence and the president's ear. These included the "establishment" wing of the White

House, led by chief of stafFand fonner Republican National Committee chair Reince

Preibus; the "nationalist" wing, led by chief strategist Stephen Bannon; and, most

notably, the "family" whig. Both Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared

Kushner, were given formal White House staff positions. Kushner was assigned

an hnmease substantive portfolio that included government reorganization, the

domestic opioid crisis, Mexican and Chinese relations with the United States, and

the wider problem of Middle East peace.

The Vice President

George W. Bush's most controversial management innovation was the power

delegated to Vice President Cheney, whose unprecedented influence could ulti-

mately have negative consequences for an office that emerged from the shadows

during the Carter administration. Historically, vice presidents were given little to

do either by the Constitution or the presidents with whom they served. The posi-

tion's constitutional powers are limited: to preside over the Senate, casting a vote

only when there is a tie, and to succeed the president in the event of removal by

"Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said

Ofi&ce."86 Tie-breaking votes have been rare: only 258 in history. Cheney cast eight

of those votes, six coming during the 2001-2003 period when the Senate s partisan

balance was aknost even. Biden cast none. But Mike Pence's vote was needed three

times before he was in office three months, most notably to confirm Betsy DeVos

as education secretary by a 51-50 tally.87

300 The President and tfae Government

Nine vice presidents have succeeded to the presidency, constituting nearly a

quarter of the nation's forty-four presidents. The Constitution's guidelines on suc-

cession are not very dear. In the event of the predecessor's death, would the new

president be the "president" or the "acting president"? John Tyler asserted the

former and in 1841 established the precedent that has been followed since. What

happens in the event of a vacancy m the vice presidency? That question was not

answered until 1967 with adoption of the Tweaty-Fifth Amendment. In addition,

over the years Congress has provided three different succession scenarios if nei-

ther the president nor vice president is able to serve. For the nation's first ninety-

four years, the successor was the Senate's president pro tempore, followed by the

Speaker of the House. For the next six decades, it was members of the cabinet in

order of their office's creation. The most recent succession act, adopted in 1947,

calls for the Speaker of the House, followed by the president pro tempore, followed

by the cabinet secretaries in the order of their office's creation, which means the

Secretary of Homeland Security comes last.88

What do vice presidents do? For many years, they were largely forgotten by pres-

idents and public alike, dispatched around the world to attend ceremonial events

and funeral services, and given the job of launching highly partisan attacks (consid-

ered beneath the dignity of the president) during political campaigns. Jimmy Carter

and Walter Mondale are credited with modemizmg the job to be an integral part of

the president's support staff.89 Mondale met regularly with the president, attended

senior staff meetings, had a staff of his own, was given important assignments, and

was treated with respect rather than derision. His successors—George H. W. Bush,

Dan Quayle, and Al Gore—sought to build on that foundation, although Gore

seemed to be Cheney's most influential predecessor.

At the outset of the Bush administration, Cheney was by far the most expen-

enced person on the White House team. He had served seven years in the Nbcon-

Ford White House, including fifteen months as Ford's chief of staff. He then had ten

years m the House of Representatives and rose through the ranks to become minor-

ity whip. Cheney next served as secretary of defense for nearly four years, head-

ing the department during the Persian Gulf War. After George H. W. Bush's loss in

1992, Cheney became a multimillionaire as the chairman and CEO ofHaUiburton

Company, an mtemational oil services firm, his position when George W. Bush

asked him to oversee the committee to select the Republican vice presidential can-

didate. Cheney himself was Bush's, surprise choice.

All of this experience meant that Cheney was far more familiar with the ways

of Washington than was his boss, and there is ample evidence that he used this

Executive Politics 301

knowledge to its fullest advantage to influence critical policy decisions of the Bush

administration. After an extensive review ofCheney's record, the Washington Post

concluded that he had "shaped his times as no vice president has done before."90

He proved to be a masterful bureaucratic operator. Most important, Cheney

enjoyed his boss's confidence, advising him in private and standmg by his side

in public. Much of Cheney's influence was behind the scenes: "The president is

'the decider,' as Bush puts it, but the vice president often serves up his menu of

choices."91 Cheney's fingerpnnts (seldom obvious) are alleged to have been on

many of the most controversial actions of the Bush administration: establishing an

eavesdropping program on international phone conversations of Americans out-

side of judicial control; using military commissions to process foreign terrorism

suspects; authorizing use of interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects that

fall outside the Geneva Conventions (m other words, using torture to extract infor-

mation); pushing consistently for higher tax cuts for the wealthiest segment of the

public; and leaking to the media the identity ofValerie Plame, a CIA operative and

the wife of an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. The leak

ultimately led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff,

for perjury and obstruction of justice. Before he assumed office. Vice President Biden openly criticized Cheney's

expansive notions of executive power and questionable policy positions on using

torture as a means to protect the homeland from further terrorist attacks.92

Biden returned to the Mondale model of the vice presidency—serving as an

influential general adviser, assuming responsibilities as assigned by the presi-

dent, and operating within more conventional definitions of the job.93 At the

outset of the Obama administration, he was asked to head the task force charged

with improving the condition of the middle class, oversee implementation of

the economic stimulus package, lead the admmistration's charge on control-

Ung gun violence, and deliver important foreign policy messages to audiences

overseas.94 Biden assumed growing responsibility for liaison and negotiations

with Congress as he got to know the president better, some of Obama s closest

advisers left the administration, and Republicans gamed control of the House

in 20U and the Senate in 2015. He led the discussions in April 2011 to avoid a

government shutdown, again in July 2011 to avoid a government default, and

yet again in 2012 to sidestep the "fiscal cliff." As a three-and-a-half decade vet-

eran of Congress, the gregarious Biden had become a well-known and well-liked

legislator, trusted by fellow Democrats and credible as a bargaining partner to

Republicans, especially Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who had dealt

3oz The President and the Government

with him many times over the years.95 He played an ongoing role in helping to

guide political developments m Iraq and Ukrame and tried to steer the Israel-

Palestinian talks onto a more fruitful path. In short, Biden was heavily involved

in the major decisions of the Obama presidency, and Obama asked him to take

the lead on selected issues.

Early in his vice presidential semce, Biden seemed to have no mterest in even-

tually running for president, though he had mounted campaigns in 1988 and

2008. Following the successful 2012 campaign, his responses to media questions

about his future plans were coy, and he later made it known that he was consid-

ering a run for the presidency ia 2016. In the end, he opted not to run, in part

because of the untimely death of his eldest son and in part because of efforts by

Democratic luminaries to dear the field for Hillary Clinton. As noted in chapter 2,

the vice presidency is a good position for seeking the presidential nomination,

but vice presidents have seldom (only twice in history) been elected directly to the

presidency, perhaps a reflection of the public's desire to have "that new car smell,"

as Obama put it.96

Biden was the third consecutive vice president to serve two full terms in ofSce,

the first time that had happened m American history. Gore, Cheney, and Biden all

played major roles m their administrations, each had a different relationship with

the president and a distinctive definition of the job, but each also drew on icapor-

tant precedents established since Nelson Rockefeller (Ford's vice president). Mike

Peace seemed likely to continue that trend, directing the transition, serving early

as a liaison to the Hill, and then undertaking a delicate diplomatic mission to east

Asia. Contmuing examples of vice presidential influence are likely to make both

official Washington and the public more comfortable with vice presidents playing

an important role in presidential administrations.

The First Lady

FDR needed Eleanor Roosevelt to travel the country in his stead, serving as his

eyes, ears, and legs. She reported her observations back to him and was a vocal

advocate for her causes, including civil rights, miner safety, women's rights, aid

for the unemployed, and war relief. Like her husband did for the presidency, Elea-

nor Roosevelt is credited with transfomiing the position of first lady, usmg the

strength of her public persona to exercise policy and political influence rather

than simply serving as Washington's leading social hostess. The East Wing of the

White House became her base of operations for a weekly newspaper column and

Executive Politics 303

regular radio appearances. She had carved out an mdependent political role from

her husband well before he entered the White House and continued her activism

after his death, serving as Truman's representative on the United Nations Com-

mission on Human Rights.

Subsequent first ladies built upon Eleanor's experience, though not all were

public activists. Bess Truman, Mamie Eiseahower, and Pat Nixon preferred

to avoid the limelight and played a more traditional role as behmd-the-scenes

partners. (For example, Mamie entered the Oval Office only four times dur-

mg Ike's eight years and was invited to do so each tune.)97 The celebrity status

that surrounded Jackie Kennedy made her an important public relations asset

to her husband, but her advocacy was limited to promoting the arts. Lady Bkd

Johnson was the next first lady to become a vocal policy advocate, for conserva-

tion and beautification projects. More in Roosevelt's vein, Rosalynn Carter and

especially Hillary Clinton pursued active policy agendas, emphasizmg expansion

of programs to treat mental disabilities and to advance health care, respectively.

Other first ladies emphasized volunteerism (Pat Nbum), drug awareness QSTancy

Reagan), literacy (Barbara Bush), and childhood literacy CLaura Bush). Even

though first ladies have largely chosen to emphasize noncontroversial, charitable

causes, the first lady's many other political activities mean that over time "she has

gone from being primarily a hostess to being an important spokesperson for her

husband's political agenda."98

Similar to the changes that have transformed the vice presidency, modem first

ladies now play an important role in the White House, to complement the informal

influence they long played in advismg their spouses privately. Modern administra-

tions have seen first ladies add a chief of staff to help coordinate other specialists for

scheduling, press relations, social events (a traditional area of responsibility), and

various special projects. Moreover, the first lady's staff has been incorporated into

the overall White House staff system rather than being treated as a separate, subor-

dinate operation. Senior members of the first lady's staff commonly hold appoint-

ments as presidential advisers. This growth and professionalization has occurred as

the first lady's job. and her visibility have grown."

Even more than the vice president, the first lady lacks "any clearly defined formal

role" and receives no pay for her efforts, though the first lady's staffbegan to receive

public support in the 1980s.100 Vice presidents at least get a modest mention in the

Constitution, officially stand for election (a major step beyond "two for the price of

one," as the Clintons proclaimed during the 1992 election), and receive half the sal-

ary set for the president. But in many ways, the first lady's job is much tougher—she

304 The President and the Government

is "evaluated as a domestic partner at the same time that she is judged as a public

figure"101 and is subject to the public's contradictory expectations of women (sup-

port for independence and equality but even more support for preserving home

and family), at least until "a woman is elected president and talk will not be of first ladies but of fast spouses."102

Michelle Obama was a visible and highly popular part of the Obama presidency;

her approval ratings were consistendy in the 60 percent range even when her hus-

band s setded in the low 40s. She embraced several major initiatives, including

support for military families (Joining Forces), helping children lead healthier lives

and fight duldhood obesity (Let's Move), and encouraging U.S. youth to complete

their education past high school (Reach Higher). She became an effective public

speaker and public ambassador for the administration's programs, making well-

received appearances on talk shows and late might television, and ultimately during

the 2012 and 2016 campaigns. Her early emphasis was primarily on noncontrover-

sial, family-oriented subjects centered on children and health, but over time she

began to speak more about issues of race and economic opportunity. Her 2016

Democratic National Convention speech took direct aim at the Trump campaign's

slogan. "I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. And I watch

my daughters—two beautiful intelligent black young women—play with the dog

on the White House lawn," Obama said.".... Don't let anyone ever tell you that

this country is not great."103

Melania Trump, whose early career was as a fashion model, was a far more reti-

cent first lady, at least during the early days of her husband's presidency. She opted

agamst living in the White House in early 2017, so that the Trumps' young son could

finish out his school year in New York City. Her low visibility role won praise as a

return to a "traditional" role but garnered its own criticism on the same grounds,

as well as for the additional expense of providing security for the first family in

two separate homes. As Michelle Cottle ofPolitico summarized, "The post of first

lady is never easy, bringing with it all of the scrutiny but none of the power of the presidency."104

Presidential Control of the Bureaucracy

Although presidents face substantial obstacles in seeking to control policymak-

ing and unplementation, they do have resources for this effort. They have substan-

tial powers granted by the Constitution, delegated by Congress, and derived from

the nature of their office. The most important are the powers to appoint and

Executive Politics 305

remove subordinates, to issue executive orders and other directives, and to prepare

the annual federal budget and regulate expenditures.

Appointment and Removal

The Constitution gives the president broad powers of appointment (Article 2,

section 2, paragraph 2), but it makes high-ranking of&dals subject to confirma-

tion, and Congress, itself, determines which appomtments warrant confirma-

tion and which ones can be delegated to the president, department heads, or the

courts. The Senate can also narrow the president's discretion in makuig appoint-

ments by establishmg detailed qualifications for various offices. Congress cannot,

however, give itself the power to appoint executive of&dals.105 Neither can it force

the president to make an appointment to a vacant position.106 The president's

appointive powers also are constrained by political considerations and practices

such as senatorial courtesy, whereby senators effectively have veto power over cer-

tain administrative and judicial appointments from their home states (see further

discussion in chapter 7).

The Senate generally has given presidents considerable leeway in the appoint-

ment of top-level executives. But confirmation is not automatic, and the Senate

uses rejections to express disapproval of specific individuals or practices or to

delay a new administration from taking charge of the bureaucracy and mtroduc-

ing changes.107 Since Watergate (1972-1974), the Senate has tended to be more

careful and procedurally consistent in examining nominees' backgrounds, quali-

fications, and relevant policy views. Enhanced vigilance has made the confirma-

tioa process "more tedious, time-consuming, and intrusive for the nominees," a

situation exacerbated by interparty conflict.108 For example, during the Clinton

administration, the Senate fmally confirmed Richard C. Holbrooke as U.S. per-

manent representative to the United Nations after a fourteen-month odyssey

that included two federal ethics investigations, four hearings conducted by the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and "holds"— objections to a nominee

that delay action—placed by several Republican senators in an effort to wrest

concessions from the administration on unrelated matters. George W. Bush s

administration never succeeded in securing Senate approval for John R. Bolton s

appointment to the same position despite two sets of hearings held by the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee and multiple efforts to end a Democratic filibuster

on the floor of the Senate. It took 166 days for the Senate to confirm the nomina-

tion ofLoretta Lynch as attorney general in 2015, a delay occasioned by batdes

over President Obama's use of executive action and Senate scheduling. Faced by

306 The President and the Government

the prospect of such a tortaous and contentious process, candidates sometime withdraw from consideration or decline mvitations to serve.109

At the beginnmg of his first term, George W. Bush had about 1,200 full-time

positions subject to Senate confirmation, out of approximately 4,000 to fill, not

including judgeships or the many advisory committees scattered across the gov-

ernment.110 Bush confronted unusual hurdles in doing so. Not only were the

nominations delayed by the 2000 election controversy, but also the new Senate

was mitiaUy bogged down in a 50-50 stalemate, then experienced a change in the

majority party from Republican to Democratic in June 2001, and finally experi-

enced confusion after 9/11. AU of this slowed the Bush administration in select-

ing top appointees. During Bush's first year in office, it took an average of 181

days for nominees to be confirmed, up from Clinton's 174 days and Reagan's 142.

OveraU, as a later study found, a full quarter of Bush appomtees were never con-

firmed.111 But Obama's record in securing confmnations was even worse: 30%

of his nominees never wound up m office, including a remarkable 72% of those

nominated in 2016, his last year as president.112 Even at the outset of his term,

Obama s nominees confronted delays nearly three weeks longer than Bush's.113

By mid-May 2009, 85 nominated candidates awaited con&mation and 111

had been approved for the 486 top positions subject to Senate confirmation.114

After one year, 63 percent of Obama's nominees had been approved, compared

to Bush s 73 percent at the same point in his first teraa. Such delays could have

devastating consequences on effectiveness. For example, the Department of the

Treasury, where Secretary Geithner faced unprecedented challenges to fix the

financial crisis, had twenty-three such positions to fill. Ten weeks into the admin-

istration, only one person other than himself had been confirmed, and through

the administration's first one hundred days the total stood at only four. Without a

senior leadership team, the department was likely to flounder.

Republican efforts to block Obama appointments later triggered unprece-

dented changes in the Senate. In November 2013, Senate Democrats adapted the

Senate's rules to prevent filibusters of all presidential nominations to executive and

judicial positions except the Supreme Court. Nominations would now be decided

by a simple majority vote rather than the supermajority of sbrty votes required

to invoke, doture and cut off Senate debate. At the time, sixty-one nominees to

executive branch positions and seventeen nominees to the federal judiciary were

awaiting floor confirmation votes.115 In making his case. Senate majority leader

Harry Reid, D-NV, noted that half of all nomination filibusters in Senate history

had occurred during Obama's terms, and he justified his action by pointing to the

Executive Politics 307

•

Republicans' refusal to consider three nominations to the D.C. Court of Appeals as

well as several administrative positions, including a two-year delay in confirmmg

a head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.116 For a short tune, Obama

no longer needed to choose nominees who could attract Republican votes.

Republicans warned that Democrats would regret the action when the Senate

majority changed hands (as it did in 2015), and indeed, Obama nominees were

largely blocked during 2015 and 2016. When a Republican president also came to

office m 2017, though, delays continued. By the end of his first 100 days in office,

two of President Trump's cabmet members had yet to be confirmed, and hundreds

ofsubcabinet positions remained vacant.

Trump tweeted as early as February that "It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet

is still not in place . . . Obstruction by Democrats!"117 Democrats did indeed

oppose many of the president's nommees. But they had little leverage for effective

obstruction, given the elimination of the filibuster for that purpose and near-unity

among Republicans on behalf of even controversial nominees such as Betsy DeVos

at Education or Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency. Delays were

attributable instead to the ethics and financial reviews required of the numerous

nommees-with complicated corporate ties. One of the two cabinet secretaries not

in place by the Easter recess in April was former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue

(Agriculture), whose paperwork was not ready for Senate consideration until mid-

March. (The other, Alexander Acosta, was not named until mid-February, when he

became the second Labor nominee after the first was withdrawn.) As noted above,

the White House was even slower to name candidates to fiU the vast majority of

subcabinet vacancies, as the perpetual battle to balance loyalty and competence

played itself out across different White House factions, cabinet secretaries, and the

president himself. Politico reported in April 2017 that President Trump "personally

oversees the hiring process for agency staff,... combing through a binder full of

names each week" and "sign[ing] off on each one."118

Delays in the Senate are occasioned most often when senators apply "holds

that prevent Senate votes "often for reasons that have nothing to do with their

qualifications to serve.""-9 Senators often seek to bargain with the administration

over a contentious policy matter important to the home state—essentially, TU

remove my hold if you give in on...." Since the administration of Ronald Reagan,

however, more and more presidential nominations (both judicial and executive)

died from "malign neglect," delaying action on the nominations for so long that

the nominee withdraws, the president gives up, or the session concludes.120 Now

gone is the historic presumption that presidential nominees wffl be approved;

«

3oS The President and the Government

even now, the president's partisan opponents in the Senate can stiU systematically

use a variety ofdelaymg tactics to kill a nomination. Both Senate Democrats and

Republicans have used such tactics. The Constitution also empowers the president

to make appointments when the Senate is in recess. This power ensured govem-

ment continuity when transportation was difficult and Congress met only part of

the year. Such recess appointments must be confirmed by the end of the Senate's

next session, but the appomtee serves in the interim. Senators often object to

recess appointments to high-level positions because they feel inhibited from thor-

oughly examining people who have already begun their duties. Recent presidents

made surprisingly frequent use of recess appomtments: Reagan made 232 recess

appointments, George H. W. Bush made 78, Bill Clinton 139, and George W. Bush

171.121 Barack Obama made just 32. But, frustrated by what he viewed as outright

Republican obstructionism, Obama made fifteen recess appointments in March

2010, largely to positions with economic responsibilities. As a White House press

release pointed out, the administration then had 217 nominations pending before

the Senate, 77 of which were waiting for floor votes. The fifteen recess appointees

had been pendmg for an average of 214 days.122

Recess appointments enable presidents to get the person they want—at least

temporarily—without making policy compromises. But the tactic came under

challenge m the courts. In January 2013, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court

of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that three recess appointments

made by President Obama in January 2012 to the National Labor Relations Board

QSILRB) were invalid. The judges ruled that presidents can make recess appomt-

ments only to positions that became vacant during intersession recesses, that is

between annual sessions of Congress. During January 2012, when the appomt-

ments were made, the Senate had maintained the semblance of being in session by

gomg through the formality of having a senator bang the gavel every three days.123

If upheld, this decision would have voided hundreds ofappomtmeiits made smce

Ronald Reagan.124

The Supreme Court decision rendered in June 2014 handed the Obama adnunis-

tration a loss—the court agreed unanimously that the three NLRB recess appomt-

ments were iUegal—but gave the presidency a victory when a narrow majority of

justices confirmed the historic practice of presidents making appointments during

Senate recesses often days or more. The majority also ruled that presidents may

make recess appointments to vacancies that arise before the recess begins. But in

the case ofObama's appointments, the three-day pro forma sessions held during an

extended break were viewed as legitimate (since the Senate makes its own rules as

Executive Politics 309

to when it is in session), and three days was too short a time for the constitutional

- provision to apply.125

Complementing the appointment power—and fundamental to presidential

control of the executive branch—is the removal power. Without the ability to

remove subordinate officials on performance or policy grounds, presidents cannot

be held fully responsible for their actions or for a department's or agency's failure

to achieve presidential objectives. The Constitution is silent, however, concerning

the removal of executive officials other than through impeachment, a cumber-

some process limited to conviction for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and

Misdemeanors."

Removing subordinates from office can spur controversy: only ten days after

taking office in 2017, for instance. President Trump fired acting attorney general

Sally Yates when she said the Justice Department would refuse to enforce the

president's so-called "travel ban" order halting immigration from a number of

nations.126 Critics called his action the "Monday Night Massacre," referencing

a (far more problematic) Watergate-era scandal springmg from the dismissal of

an independent prosecutor in 1973. More generally, presidents have long clashed

with Congress over the removal power. The post-Civfl War conflict between

President Andrew Johnson and Congress over Reconstruction policy involved

the removal power. In 1867, Congress brought unpeachment proceedings against

Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act, which it had passed over his veto.

That statute authorized all persons appointed with the advice and consent of the

Senate to continue to hold office until the president appointed—and the Senate

confirmed—a successor. Johnsoa tried to remove Secretary of War Edwin Staaton

without permission. Although Johnson survived the unpeaohment trial by one

vote, the issue of the removal power remained unresolved. (Congress repealed the

Tenure of Office Act in 1887.)

The Supreme Court dealt directly with the removal power in a decision involv-

mg a challenge to Woodrow Wilson's summary removal of a postmaster.127 In

Myers v. U.S., the Court invalidated an 1876'law that required the Senate's consent

for a postmaster's removal. It held that the Constitution gave the president the

removal power and Congress could not place restrictions on its exercise. Nine years

later, however, the Court upheld the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission

Act that limited the grounds for removal of its members.128 The Court ruled that

the president's unqualified power of removal is limited to "purely executive offices

and that Congress may prescribe conditions for the removal of officials perfonn-

ing "quasi-legislative" and "quasi-judidal" functions. The Court has not, however,

•f

3io The President and the Government

fully clarified the meaning of these terms. A dramatic instance of the removal

power occurred in August 1981, when President Reagan fired U,400 striking

members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. A U.S. court of

appeals upheld the action, interpreting it as a discharge of the president's obliga-

tion to enforce a statute prohibiting strikes by federal employees.129 In 2016, the

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the structure of the Consumer Fmandal

Protection Bureau was unconstitutional, because it had a single director who could

only be removed for cause. Following Myers, the majority held the director must

serve at the pleasure of the president.130

Members of Congress can ratchet up pressure on political executives (and

their boss), even if they cannot directly remove them without impeachment

proceedings. In 2007, for instance, Senate Democrats, joined reluctantly by sev-

eral Republicans, sought to force President George W. Bush to remove Attorney

General Alberto Gonzales when controversy about the firing of eight U.S. attor-

aeys, allegedly on "political grounds," embroiled the attorney general in sustained

controversy. After several ineffective appearances before the Senate Judiciary

Committee and additional controversy about his role in the administration's

warrantless surveillance program while working in the White House, Gonzales

c

Of'THOSr; M.S.MHiR". OF THt IKTf.l.t.lGt^Ct 4<-,r*<:¥

S^RVfCEOf

»* * * + it Hr ^'iffs!9

•* * . * * •*• .* ' *,.:,-N

* *• * * *• ••^:. ,#;

'fS^SSi^

* •* +• nr ir ••«, 'fc;;.<|

* .*. *. it. * 1, •• •W.

Executive Politics 3".

President Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency a day after toting office, seeking to reassure its stajj 'after Trump feuded

with the intdligmce community during the transition. But his politicmd remark in front of the OA's memarial wall caused their own controversy.

submitted his resignation in August 2007. The president accepted, expressing

appreciation for his longtime aide's hard work and bitterness at what he saw as

mistreatment of Gonzales. A similar drama unfolded for Obama's secretary of

health and human services, when the controversy surrounding the faulty rollout

of the federal health care website in fall 2013 triggered calls for Kathleen Sebelius

to resign, which she did in April 2014.

Executive Orders and Unilateral Action

Recent presidents have used various forms of unilateral action, including

executive orders and presidential memoranda, to take dramatic steps during

their mitial hours and days in office. Moments after delivermg his first inaugu-

ral address, Reagan used a presidential memorandum to freeze federal hiring to

support his contention that big government was the problem, not the solution.

Clinton issued an executive order on ethics while still on Capitol Hill after deliver-

ing his first inaugural address. George W. Bush issued three memoranda on his

first inauguration day, followed by several more in the next week, to emphasize

high-level policy priorities including the redefinition of relationships between

faith-based programs and the government.131 Obama's first executive actions

rolled back a number of his predecessor's efforts linked to the war on terror (such

as the use of torture in questioning suspected terrorists) and practices on govern-

ment secrecy.132 On January 20, 2017, Trump issued an executive order seeking

to "mmimize the ... burdens" of the Affordable Care Act; a flurry of orders and

memoranda soon followed, drawing attention to campaign priorities such as the

rollback of environmental regulations and the aggressive enforcement of immi-

gration laws. These examples illustrate a long-standing presidential practice: to

accomplish goals by using a variety of unilateral instruments or direct administra-

don, including executive orders, directives, memoranda, proclamations, policy

instructions, and interpretations of congressional intent. Scholars have increas-

mgly focused on these examples of unilateral executive power as recent presi-

dents confronted deep partisan opposition to theu- policy goals.

Under a strict interpretation of separation of powers, presidents have no

durect legislative authority. From the beginning, however, they have issued orders

and directives on the basis of Article 2. Most modern presidents have followed

Theodore Roosevelt's "stewardship" theory of executive power (see chapter 1),

which holds that Article 2 confers on them inherent power to take whatever

actions they deem necessary in the national interest unless prohibited by the

Constitution or by law. Executive orders have been a primary means of exercising

312 The President and the Government

this broad presidential prerogative power and are summarized in Table 6-2 for

the period smce 1969. "They are presidential edicts, legal instruments that cre-

ate or modify laws, procedures, and policy by fiat and have helped push the boundaries of presidential power by taking advantage of gaps in constitutional

and statutory language that allow them to fill power vacuums and gam control of

emerging capabilities."133

Reliance on such strategies is especially notable in crucial policy areas such

as civil rights, economic stabilization, and national security,134 or when conflict

with Congress means action cannot be accomplished through legislation. In civil

rights. Franklin Roosevelt established a Pair Employment Practices Commission m

1943 to prevent discriminatory hiring by government agencies and military sup-

pliers. In 1948, Harry Tmmaa ended segregation in the armed forces by executive

order. In March 1961, John F. Kennedy issued a sweeping order creating the Equal

Employment Opportunity Commission and giving it broad enforcement powers.

Lyadon Johnson went further, requiring by executive order the preferential hiring

of minorities by government contractors.

More recently, after Congress failed to take action on immigration legislation

that had languished for a year. President Obama issued a politically explosive

directive in November 2014. In a nationwide television address, he explained

that prosecutorial discretion — the ability of the president to set priorities for

executive branch officials in enforcement—and precedents set under both

TABLE 6-2 Executive Orders, 1969-April 20,2017

President/Yearsm Office

Richard Nixon (1969-1974)

Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)

Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)

Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)

George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)

Bill Clinton (1993-2001)

George W. Bush (2001-2009)

Barack Obama (2009-2017)

Donald J. Trump (2017-)

Total Executae Orders

Issued by Administration

346

169 320

381

166 364 291

276

25

Executive Orders

per Year

62.9

67.6

80.0

47.6

41.5

38.5

36.4

34.5

SODSCE See "Executive Orders Disposition Tables Index," Federal Register, www.aTchives.gov/federal-register/exemtive-

orders/disposition.html. Also see The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/index_docs.php.

Executive Politics 313

Republican and Democratic presidents legitimized taking action that could

allow as many as five million undocumented immigrants to work in the United

States without fear of deportation.135 Obama's action should have surprised no

one: He announced a week prior to the 2014 State of the Union message that he

would use his "pen and phone" to pursue his agenda, the pen to sign executive

actions and the phone to assemble like-minded Americans to pursue policies

blocked by Republican tactics.136

An economic crisis often triggers unilateral action. FDR established broad prec-

edents for the use of executive orders to achieve economic stability, and a num-

ber of his successors have followed suit. During World War II, he issued executive

orders to establish the Office of Price Administration (OPA) and the Office of

Economic Stabilization and to give them extensive powers over prices, wages, and

profits. The OPA also rationed scarce consumer goods such as meat, butter, shoes,

tires, and gasoline. As a basis for his actions, Roosevelt cited his responsibility to

respond to the "unlimited emergency" created by the war. The Emergency Price

Control Act of 1942 provided retroactive statutory endorsement for the establish-

ment of the emergency agencies and the measures they implemented. In 1970, in

the face of persistent inflation, Congress passed the Economic Stabilization Act,

which authorized the president to issue orders that would control wages and prices,

but with few criteria to guide these actions—Nbcon used that power on August 15,

1971, to issue an executive order imposing a ninety-day freeze on nonagricultural

wages and prices. An October 15 order extended the controls and established addi-

tional machinery to aid in administering them.137

Presidents also have used executive orders and national secdrity directives to

guide foreign policy. In 1942, for example, FDR issued an executive order requir-

ing the internment of all persons of Japanese ancestry living in the Pacific coastal

states, seventy thousand of them U.S. citizens. The Supreme Court upheld this mas-

sive deprivation of civil liberties on the basis of the commander in chief clause.138

George W. Bush responded to the 9/11 attacks with a series of executive actions

enabling him to wield wartime powers, including an order setting up military com-

missions, m lieu of civilian courts, to fay detamees.

Among the eight most recently completed administrations, Jimmy Carter

made the heaviest use of executive orders, partly because of his interest in govern-

ment reorganization; presidents smce 1981 have used them less (see Table 6-2).

In the three months following 9/11, President Bush issued more executive orders

than he had in the previous eight months, and several of them proved especially

controversial.139

3U The President and the Government

There is some disagreement over whether presidents confronted by a Congress

controlled by the opposition party will make heavier use of executive orders. For

example, year-to-year totals show that Clinton's use of executive orders actually

declined rather than mcreased when he confronted a. hostile Republican Congress

after 1995, although he maystiU have used executive orders as a way to make progress

on major policy initiatives.140 In his exhaustive study of executive orders, Kenneth

Mayer traces the pattern of their use from 1936 through 1995 and concludes that

the issuance of orders "rises and falls in response to significant events."141 The

onset of war, for example, triggers new administrative arrangements and regula-

tions governing economic controls and wartime mobilization, just as peace requires

their removal. The focus of executive orders has also changed over time. Orders

dealing with executive branch administration, foreign affairs, and domestic policy

increased from 1936 to 1999.142 KaaUy, Democrats make more use of executive

orders than Republicans; more orders are issued at the end of a term and when

the president's public support is low than under the opposite conditions; and more

orders are issued when the president's party is in the congressional majority, a

counterintuitive finding stemming from the fact that many orders simply imple-

ment new legislative mandates.143 Mayer estimates that about one of every seven

executive orders is significant—that is, it attracts media, congressional, or scholarly

notice; triggers litigation; or represents a meaningful policy departure.144 Trump

issued 24 executive orders in the first three months of his term, many with elaborate

signing ceremonies, as a high-profile way to argue he was making progress on his

substantive priorities.

Phfllip J. Cooper argues that the focus should be on the content, rather than

the quantity, of such actions and the reasons presidents use them. In particular,

recent administrations use "presidential memoranda" alongside, and interchange-

ably with, executive orders; and Cliaton is credited with issuing 536 presidential

memoranda, many more than his predecessors.145 Unlike executive orders, memo-

randa do not have to be published in the Federal Register, m which rules and orders

appear, nor is there a procedure for developiag them, making them simpler to issue.

Recent research has shown that the number of memoranda has grown over the past

half-century as the number of executive orders has decUned, quite possibly because

of the greater publicity that orders attract. Under Obama, the number ofmemo-

randa surged and they played a particularly important role in the "we can't wait"

campaign launched in 2011—as the president put it, "We can't wait for Congress

to do its job. So where they won't act, I wiL"146 As Obama explained to a crowd

in Denver, Colorado, "I've told my admiiustratioa we're going to look every single

Executive Politics 315

day to figure out what we can do without Congress." Examples given by the presi-

dent included giving states flexibility on No Chfld Left Behind, the federal educa-

tion policy; processing payments more quickly for small businesses that are federal

contractors; eUmiaatmg regulations to save on health care expenses for hospitals

and individuals; hiring veterans for health care and community service jobs; help-

ing families refinance their mortgages; and linMng federal purchasing to vendors'

policies on wages and equal rights.147

Ultimately, the question will be whether Congress and others wffl accept

such assertions of presidential prerogative. Unilateral presidential action can be

reversed. During the Korean War, the Supreme Court invalidated Truman's seizure

of the steel industry on the grounds that he had not used the machinery estab-

lished in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 to avert a stodke.148 More recently, we have

the example of successor presidents reversing an action of their predecessors, as

Clinton,149 George W. Bush, Obama and Trump all did. In that sense executive

action is fragile—its fate rests with the next executive.

Not only can executive orders be reversed—they might not be obeyed. As Obama

left office, more than 40 prisoners were stUl held at Guantanamo Bay. Ifbureau-

crats find excuses to drag their feet, presidents might need to win their cooperation

through bargaining. There is strong evidence that presidents do just that—craft

directives that both the chief executive and career officials can support. As Andrew

Rudalevige concludes, "the issuance of executive orders seems to involve as much

consultation as command."150

From 1932 untU 1983, Congress exerted a measure of control over'executive

lawmaking with the legislative veto. Provisions added to certain statutes gave

Congress the power to review and reject executive orders or administrative regu-

lations authorized by the legislation. The legislative veto took various forms. It

allowed disapproval of regulations by concurrent resolution or by simple reso-

lution of either house or by action of a committee of either house. In its most

common form, the legislative veto required that the proposed action lie before

Congress for a specified period—usually surty or ninety days—during which

either chamber could disapprove it. The president's reorganization authority,

which Congress first authorized in 1939, carried such a procedure. Other major

statutes that had a fomi of legislative veto include the War Powers Resolution of

1973, the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the Federal Elections

Campaign Act of 1974, and the National Emergencies Act of 1976. More than

250 statutes provided for some type of legislative veto before the Supreme Court

declared it unconstitutional in 1983.

3i6 The President and the Government

In Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, the Court held that the one-

house legislative veto provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act was an

unconstitutional breach of the separation of powers.151 The Court reasoned that

the veto involved "the exercise of legislative power" without "bicameral passage

followed by presentment to the President." In other words, such actions were not

subject to presidential concurrence or veto. Initial reaction to the decision was that

it was not a definitive ruling and that somehow Congress would find a way stat-

utorily to control executive branch lawmaking.152 Although the Court threw out

past practices, Congress has required agencies to obtain approval from the appro-

priations committees before takmg specified actions and used mformal agreements with agencies to achieve the same goal.153

Presidents and Many

Presidents have substantial financial powers, delegated by Congress, that they

use in their efforts to control the bureaucracy. The most unportarit is the power to

formulate the budget, which controls the amount of spending by federal depart-

ments and agencies. The budget establishes the president's spending priorities, sets

the timing of program initiatives, and distributes rewards to, and imposes sanc-

tions on, executive branch units.154 By controlling the total amount of the budget,

the president can try to influence the economy's performance (see chapter 9).

Presidential use of the executive. budget developed m the twentieth century.

The enormous mcrease in expenditures during World War I and the task ofman-

agmg the sizable national debt that resulted convinced Congress of the need for

an executive budget. The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 made the president

responsible for compiling department and agency estimates and for submitting

them annually to Congress m the form of a budget. The statute.established the

Bureau of the Budget (BOB), in the Treasury Department, to assist the president

in assembling and revising the estimates. The statute barred departments and

agencies from submitting their funding requests directly to Congress as they had

done previously.

The initial emphasis in the development of the federal budget process was on

control of expenditures and prevention of administrative abuses.155 During the

1930s, the emphasis shifted from control to management. The budget was seen

as a means ofevaluatmg and improving administrative performance. The transfer

of the BOB in 1939 from the Treasury Department to the new EOP symbolized

the management orientation. The BOB was to become the president's man-

agement arm. A decade later, the government adopted a performance budget

Executive Politics 317

»' K-

organized by functions and activities rather than by line items representing objects

of expenditure.

The most recent development in budgeting is its orientation toward planning.

This emphasis attempts to link annual budgeting, geared to the appropriations

process in Congress, to long-range planning of government objectives. The limited

success of the planning orientation is reflected in the rapid arrival and departure

of budgeting systems, such as the program planning budgeting system and zero-

base budgeting.156 The budgeting process, as it had developed by the early 1970s,

embodied all three orientations—(1) control, (2) management, and (3) planning—

but it was least effective as a plannmg device.

Because the annual budget process is inherently incremental and subject to

restrictions and conditions imposed by Congress, the executive budget has only

limited utility as an aid to presidential decision making. The budget cycle forces

the president and Congress to art according to a timetable that stretches from

twenty-two months before the start of the fiscal year (October 1) through the ensu-

ing year. Congress and the bureaucracy are concerned primarily with how large

an increase or decrease will be made m a department's or an agency's budget.

From 1982 to 1997, huge federal deficits accompanied by strong public resist-

ance to tax increases caused presidential and congressional budget decisions to

be focused primarily on reducing spending. The emergence of a budget surplus m

1998 ushered in a debate between Republicans and Democrats over the need for

tax cuts. Republicans won the struggle in 2001, when George W. Bush engineered

a massive tax cut to be spread over eleven years, and then accelerated m the addi-

tional cuts of 2003. But when the threat of deficits reemerged in mid-2001, ques-

tions again arose about the government's capacity to plan effectively, and several

Democrats seeking the presidency in 2004 proposed that the tax cuts be rolled

back. Faced with a severe economic recession, Obama proposed dramatically

increased federal spending, delayed taking action on his campaign promise to

mcrease taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but also discussed the need to return

to a more responsible budget plan m the future. (See chapter 9.) Trump said he

would cut back on domestic spending while cutting taxes, boosting defense and

protecting entitlement spending. As his budget director soon recognized, this

combination meant an accompanying promise to elimmate the national debt was

necessarily "hyperbole."157

Congress has the power of the purse and makes its own budget decisions. It

Umits total spending through resolutions proposed by the budget committees in

each house. Although the congressional budget total is usually fairly close to the

318 The President and the Government

president's, the priorities in the two budgets often differ sharply. Deficit politics

constrained BiU Clinton when he attempted to use his first budget as a vehicle

for policy change.158 Although Congress narrowly (with no Republican support)

accepted most of his five-year plan (1994-1998) to reduce the deficit by ahnost

$500 billion, it embarrassed Clinton by rejecting a $16 biUion package to stimulate

the economy.159 In 1995, the first Republican-controlled Congress in forty years

ignored the administration's budget, which did not contain proposals for eventu-

ally eliminating the deficit, and adopted a budget resolution that projected a bal-

anced budget in fiscal year 2002. Nearly two years of budget battles were finally

resolved in a 1997 agreement on how to balance the budget.160 George W. Bush,

in contrast, found a cooperative Congress controlled by his own party during the

first half of 2001 and secured passage of his tax cut. Donald Trump found resist-

ance even among his ovm co-partisans to the large cuts to domestic programs he

proposed for fiscal 2018.

In addition to budgeting, presidents have certain discretionary spending powers

that mcrease their leverage over the bureaucracy. Presidents also have some abil-

ity, for instance, to steer federal grant funding to politically or electorally beneficial

states and localities.161 They also have substantial nonstatutory authority, based on

understandings with congressional appropriations committees, to transfer funds

within an appropriation and from one program to another. The committees expect

to be kept informed of such "reprogramming" actions.162 Fund transfer authority

is essential to sound financial management, but it can be abused to circumvent

congressional decisions. In 1970, Nucoa transferred funds to support an extensive

unauthorized covert military operation in Cambodia. Nevertheless, Congress has

given presidents and certain agencies the authority to spend substantial amounts

of money on a confidential basis, the largest and most controversial being for mtel-

ligence activities.

Presidents have exercised a measure of expenditure control through the prac-

tice of impoundment—failing to spend appropriated funds. Beginning with

George Washington, presidents routinely impounded funds to achieve savings

when actual expenditures fell short of appropriations.163 They withheld funds

when authorized or directed to do so by Congress to establish contingency

reserves or impose a ceilmg on total expenditures. Presidents from FDR through

Lyndon Johnson also impounded some of the funds Congress had added, over

their objections, for various programs. Although such actions often drew con-

gressional criticism, they did not lead to confrontation because they occurred

infrequently and were generally focused on expenditures for specific programs or

Executive Politics 3x9

projects. Congress recognized that circumspect use of impoundments helped its

members resist pressure for increased spending.164

Impoundment became a major constitutional issue during the Nbton admin-

istration. Sweeping impoundments in domestic program areas, especially agri-

culture, housing, and water pollution control, led to charges that the president

arbitrarily and illegally had substituted his spending priorities for those of

Congress. Nixon's impoundments involved larger amounts, violated explicit con-

gressional instructions to spend the funds, and were designed to terminate entire

programs rather than individual projects. In short, Nixon used impoundment

as the primary weapon in a battle with Congress over domestic spending priori-

ties. He did not bargain or negotiate but imposed his priorities by fiat. Congress

struck back with the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which estab-

lished procedures for congressional review by requiring the president to report all

impoundments to Congress. Proposals to rescind appropriated funds, that is, to

return them to the Treasury, must be approved by both houses within forty-five

days. The original power of either house t& disapprove proposals to defer spend-

ing to the next fiscal year disappeared when the Supreme Court invalidated the

legislative veto.

In 1996, Clinton was the beneficiary of the Republican Party's promise in its

1994 election manifesto, the Contract with America, to establish a line-item veto

for the president's use m fightmg the budget deficit, a power many governors enjoy.

Clinton was the first—and probably the last—president to have this power. The

Lme-Item Veto Act authorized the president to cancel specific spending items or

tax breaks rather than veto an entire appropriations bill if the budget was in defi-

dt. Presidential decisions would stand unless overturned by a two-thirds vote in

both houses of Congress. The Court invalidated this statute in 1998165 but not

before Clinton invoked the authority eighty-two times. In 2006 and 2007, George

W. Bush requested expedited rescission powers comparable to a line-item veto

but requiring affirmative majority votes in both houses of Congress, a design he

hoped the Court would not strike down.166 The Obama administration proposed

in 2010 that Congress consider a list of targeted cuts within forty-five days before

voting on large appropriations bills and promised to pay particular attention to ear-

marks. Expedited rules would require a simple majority vote m both houses with no

amendments or filibusters. Congress was not convinced.167

Obama did make efforts to make government spending more account-

able and transparent. In conjunction with the economic stimulus package, the

Obama administration created a publicly accessible website to track spending,

320 The President and the Government

overseen by a Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board consisting ofgov-

eminent employees and presidential appointees. Similarly, the president created an

Oversight and Accountability Board to monitor progress on reducing government

waste. Vice President Biden was given the job of convening montMy cabinet meet-

ings to track progress on waste reduction.168

Presidential Management of the Bureaucracy

In addition to thek formal powers, modem presidents have relied on maaage-

rial tools m their efforts to coordmate and direct executive branch operations.

Three major tools—(1) staffing, (2) reorganizing, and (3) planning—have been

employed with mixed results. This is not to argue that the public sector is inhospi-

table to modern management techniques but to suggest that political forces signifi-

cantly affect their use.169

Staffing

As discussed in chapters 1 and 4, the institutionalized presidency has grown

steadily as presidents have used staff to direct the executive branch and fulfill its

many functions. From the vantage point of the Oval OfBce, it may sometimes seem

that there are "people, people everywhere but none to do his will."170 Although

recent admmistrations have used presidential staffs and the cabinet m dffierent

ways, the long-term trend has been toward increasing reliance on a strong, sizable,

centralized White House staff to protect the political interests of presidents, to act

as their principal policy advisers, and to direct (as opposed to monitor and coordi-

nate) the implementation of presidential priorities by the bureaucracy. Centralizing

power m the White House may appear to have been a linear process, but centraliza-

tion is contingent on the president's needs, the shifting environment, and estimates

of the full range of available strategies for accomplishing presidential goals.171

Critics of this development argue that centralization has undercut the cabinet's

advisory potential, narrowed the president's perspective on policy choices, and

inhibited effective and responsive bureaucratic performance. Stephen Hess cau-

turns that reliance on a centralized White House staff" has been "self-defeating."172

Experiences under Nixon and Reagan support this view. Yet both Ford and Carter

tried a decentralized model of White House staflSng and abandoned it in favor of

hierarchical alternatives.

George H. W. Bush adopted the hierarchical model of organization. Former

governor John Sununu, R-NH, served as White House chief of staff, functionmg as

Executive Politics 321

the guardian of the president's political interests, serving as his link to conserva-

tives, and often appearmg to set the administration's course on domestic social

policy issues. In these roles/ Sununu was the target of considerable congressional

and media criticism that ultimately made him a liability.173

The Clinton White House reflected the leadership of a highly intelligent, ener-

getic, and enormously self-confident president who lacked self-disdpline, assumed

many personal responsibilities, had difficulty focusmg his goals and managing

his efforts, and was reluctant to delegate. Clinton staffed the White House largely

with consultants from his campaign and friends and political associates from

Arkansas.174 The staff lacked the Washington experience and political stature that

might have prevented damaging early missteps such as the botched nominations of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood to be attorney general, the conflict with Congress over

ending discrunination against gays in the military, and the defeat of the administra-

tion's economic stimulus bill.

Clinton's first chief of staff, Thomas F. McLarty ffl, was replaced in June 1994

by 0MB director Lean Panetta, who brought much-needed order. Panetta and his

successors, Erskine Bowles and John Podesta, established control over the flow of

communications and personal access to the president.175 A greater degree ofcen-

tralization and formal organization proved a necessity to counteract Clinton's lack

of discipline. Clinton also demonstrated the ability to recognize his failings and

take corrective action. White House staff at the start of Clinton's second term

were more pragmatic and less ideological and had more Washington experience

than their first-term counterparts.176

George W. Bush followed a modified version of the "spokes-in-a-wheel" White

House structure so successful during Reagan's first term. In this model, a Umited

number of aides have access to a president who freely delegates responsibilities.

Like Reagan, Bush had three principal aides (though they were far less competi-

tive with each other than Reagan's "troika.") Andrew Card was Bush's &st chief

of staff, a position that has become so prevalent across both Republican and

Democratic administrations as to warrant beiag described as "institutionalized."

He was joined by Karl Rove, the political strategist, and Karen Hughes, the press

and public relations adviser. Card, who began his government service in the Reagan

I,, administration, had served as deputy chief of staff and secretary of transportation

in the George H. W. Bush administration. Rove and Hughes were longtime aides to

1; George W. Bush in Texas.177 Hughes left after two years, and Card resigned in April

2006, having served longer than any chief of staff in nearly a half-century.178 Until

his resignation in August 2007, Rove remained an influential WUte House figure,

322 The President and the Government

broadly responsible for political affairs. Investigators probed Rove's role in the out-

ing ofValene Plame, the firing ofU.S. attorneys, the establishment of a shadow

e-mail system that staff could use for political purposes, and pressure on govem-

ment employees to help Republican allies.179

Two other advisers played a special role in the Bush administration. Vice

President Cheney was given some of the most challenging assignments in the

admmistradon, including relations with Congress, developing a national energy

strategy, and being a full participant (some would say the major architect) of the

administration's policies to counter terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of

mass destruction. Condoleezza Rice, first as national security adviser and then as

secretary of state, was a public spokesperson called upon to explain and justify

policies. As the administration responded to 9/11, Rice spent considerable time

brokering discussions between two of the most forceful members of the Bush cabi-

net. Secretary of State Colin PoweU and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Finally, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, durmg their time as White House

counsel, also had ready access to President Bush, as did Josh Bolten, Card's succes-

sor as chief of staff.

In strlkmg contrast to Clinton, Bush, the first president with an MBA, emerged

as a disciplined delegator," who drew upon the services of his able aides from the

outset.180 Critics, however, raised the same question they had asked about Reagan

and Eisenhower: When presidents delegate, who's reaUy in charge? For critics, it

seemed that Vice President Cheaey was exercising more responsibility than his con-

stitutional superior.181

Obama proved to be a hands-on president who solicited advice from mul-

tiple sources. His chiefs of staff, Rahm Emanuel, Bill Daley, Jack Lew, and Denis

McDonough, played key roles in coordinating White House activities, semng as

traffic cop for the many inputs to the president and as enforcer of presidential

decisions.182 In general, chiefs ofstaffkeep the White House running as efladently

as possible (administrator role), advise the president on pressing issues while

coordinating the advice of others (advisor role), protect the president's time and

interests (guardian role), and sometimes bargain in the president's stead (proxy

role).183 A close examination ofObama's &st two chiefs concludes that Emanuel

was particularly focused on representing the president's interests on Capitol Hill

and advising the president on policy, whereas Bill Daley imposed unpopular

new limits on the range of advisers meeting with the president (administrator

role) but lasted only a year in the job.184 Obama also came to rely increasingly on

Executive Politics 323

Vice President Biden, though there was never a suspicion in the Obama White

House that he overshadowed the president, and on Valerie Jarrett, a Chicago busi-

nesswoman and longtime family friend. David Axekod and then David Plouffe were

Obama's prmcipal political advisers, veterans ofObama's first election campaign.

Obama also seemed to rely heavily on several cabinet secretaries—Clinton in State,

Geithner m Treasury, Robert Gates (followed by Lean Panetta and later Ash Carter)

m Defense, and Ame Duncan in Education. Nonetheless, there was little doubt that

the White House dominated policymakmg.

Since the Reagan admmistration, the presidency has become mcreasingly

centralized and politicized. Terry Moe defends these developments as an ines-

capable consequence of the expectations that impinge upon the presidency.185

A similar conclusion emerged from a 1986 symposium featuring eight former

White House chiefs of staff (or their functional equivalents), who served presidents

fi-om Eisenhower through Carter. In their views, "the demands for activism and the

requirements of self-reliance encourage presidents to look favorably upon the kinds

of services provided by a rationalized White House run by a strong chief."186 At its

outset, the Obama administration appeared to be squarely in this pattern, sending

every indication that a hard-charging chief of staff, aided by a number of policy

czars, would seek to run the government from the White House. Although it is pos-

sible to argue that the twin crises of foreign wars and domestic recession created

the need for centralized decision making, Moe's research suggests that the Obama

administration was simply falling into line with recent practice. Justin S. Vaughn

pomts out that the use of policy czars—an Obama strategy of choice—arises from

the same need to centralize leadership in the White House relying heavily on agents

responsible exclusively to the president.187

The Trump White House certainly centralized authority vis-a-vis the

Cabinet—but without the strong chief of staff model that had become the norm.

Trump chief of staff Preibus was billed as co-equalwith "chief strategist Bannon.

Another pole of mfluence was represented by Vice President Mflke Pence, a

social conservative with far more government experience than his colleagues.

Yet another—and probably the most important—was occupied by Trump family

members, notably Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.188 As noted in Chapter 4,

the factional competition that resulted was consistent with Tmmp s style of

decision-makmg during his business career. But such an approach is difficult to

reconcile with the workload of the modem White House and the strain it places

on the president to coordinate the different streams of information competing

324 The President and the Government

staffers produce. Franklin Roosevelt was arguably the last president to success-

fuUy make such a system work for any length of time.189

Reorganization

It is almost an article of faith among political leaders and public admmistration

theorists that executive reorganization can increase presidential power over the

bureaucracy. Between 1932 and 1984, more than one hundred presidential propos-

als were submitted to Congress under varying congressional guidelines.190 Lyndon

Johnsoa, Nixon, and Carter believed the performance of the executive branch could

be improved and the bureaucracy brought to heel through such changes. Johnson's

efforts were, however, inconsequential, and Nixon's were interrupted by his resig-

nation. By most accounts, the results of Carter's reorganization project—by far the

most extensive—were modest.191

Organizational structure and administrative arrangements are significant

because they reflect values and priorities and affect access to decision makers.

The location and status of an administrative unit—as a department, an inde-

pendent agency, or a component of a department—symbolize the importance

of its goals and the interests it serves. Administrative arrangements also can

contribute to or frustrate the achievement of accountability to Congress and the

public. Reorganizing, however, does not necessarily result in increased opera-

tional efScieacy, greater program effectiveness, or enhanced public account-

ability. There is no ideal form for a government agency or a consistent set of

prescriptions for organizing the executive branch. One set of standard pre-

scriptions tends to centralize authority; another tends to disperse it. The most

profound consequences of organizational change are not in the "engineered

realm of efficiency, simplicity, size, and cost of government"; rather, they lie

in the areas of "political influence, policy emphasis, and communication of

governmental intentions."192 For example, the placement of the Occupational

Safety and Health Administration in the Department of Labor rather than in

the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare led to an initial focus of

regulations on mechanical, rather than biological, hazards in the workplace.

Experience has shown that although the rationale for reorganization is couched

in the rhetoric of economy and efficiency, the crucial factors in decisions to reor-

ganize are power, policy, and symbolic significance.

In 1939, Congress authorized presidents to propose executive reorganization

plans that take effect after sixty days unless disapproved by both houses. When

extendiag that authority in 1949, Congress allowed either house to disapprove

Executive Politics 325

such plans. Congress continued to renew the reorganization authority with little

change until 1973. In 1977, Carter requested and received renewal of the author-

ity with provision for veto by either house. The Supreme Court decision striking

down the legislative veto necessitated changes in the review process that made

Congress a fuU partner in reorganizations, but the authority lapsed in 1984 and

was not renewed.193 George W. Bush wanted to use reorganization as a strategy

and requested restoration of the president's pemianent reorganization author-

ity, as did Obama. But in the absence of congressional action. Bush had to

follow the normal legislative process in creating the Department of Homeland

Security. (The same process was used earlier to create the Departments of Energy,

Education, and Veterans Affairs.)194 Obama's efforts to consolidate various trade

and commerce functions into a single agency were simply abandoned.

Carter's reorganization achievements exceeded those of his immediate predeces-

sors and of his successors but fell far short of the thorough restructuring of the exec-

utive branch and reduction in the number of agencies he had promised. Congress

passed legislation that established the Departments of Energy and of Education and

allowed five reorganization plans to take effect. Carter and his staff were unpre-

pared for the junsdictional conflicts that accompanied congressional considera-

don of reorganization proposals.195 The president also lacked a well-conceived,

comprehensive, politicaUy defensible strategy. The Carter experience indicates that

reorganization has its uses, but they are more in the realm of policy and politics

than in management unprovement.

The Clinton administration downplayed reorganization in favor of extensive per-

sonnel reductions called for in Vice President Gore's National Performance Review

Report, along with the report's recommendations to cut red tape, enhance customer

satisfaction, empower employees, and eliminate unneeded functions. That report

broke sharply with the administrative management paradigm that had dominated

presidential efforts to manage the bureaucracy since the Brownlow Committee

report of 1937. That philosophy, which the reports of the First Hoover Commission

(1949) and the Ash Council (1971) also embodied, "emphasized the need for demo-

cratic accountability of departmental and agency officers to the President and his

central management agencies and through these institutions to the Congress."196

In its stead, the Gore report embraced the entrepreneurial management paradigm

popularized by David Osbome and Ted Gaebler in Reinventing Government.197

These writers caU for a "cultural and behavioral shift in the management ofgovem-

ment" from a bureaucratic to an entrepreneurial government. In their view, public

agencies are entrepreneurial organizations competing in a market environment

326 The President and the Government

in which success is detennmed by customer satisfaction. Clinton's remvention

effort evolved over time and in two later phases shifted attention to reducing gov-

emment's cost and then to attacking complex problems, such as finding ways to

create and maintain "safe communities," a highly complex issue for government

to tackle.198 Clinton's departure from administrative orthodoxy sparked extensive

discussion among academics,199 but in the short run, few conclusions can be drawn

about his novel strategy.

George W. Bush made the Clinton strategy his own by adding a few distinctive

features. He sought to reduce government employment by ultimately makmg at

least half of the federal jobs subject to competitive bidding from the private sec-

tor.200 Small reorganizations were introduced m agencies throughout the govern-

ment and justified as improving performance. The administration called for a new

"pay for performance" system that would not provide annual pay mcreases for civil

service employees. They mtroduced this system for members of the SES and pro-

posed extending it more generally.201

Obama, as noted, did not rely on reorganization as a management strategy,

except during the brief life of his business and trade consolidation proposal in 20U.

Donald Trump, however, issued an executive order m March 2017 that promised

a "comprehensive plan for reorganizing the executive branch." Department heads

were directed to develop "agency reform plans" that would "create a lean, account-

able, more efficient government" by removing duplicative functions and reducing

the size of the federal workforce.202 These were to become part of the fiscal 2019

budget process.

Planning

Aaron Wildavsky defined planning as "current action to secure future. coase-

quences."203 Foresight in anticipating problems and developing solutions is the

essence of effective planning. Long-range planning is a hallmark of successful cor-

porate management, but the federal government cannot make that claim.

Presidents have engaged in long-range planning with only limited success. Early

efforts to include a permanent planning agency within the EOP never came to fm[-

tion.204 And as noted, attempts to combine annual budgeting with comprehensive

planning through the program plamung budgeting system and zero-base budget-

ing have not succeeded. Both approaches entaUed comprehensive attempts to relate

spendmg decisions to long-term consequences. Each required extensive amounts

of information and analyses that were never integrated with budget decisions,

and bureau and agency officials did not find it worthwhile to take either process

Executive Politics 327

seriously. Their fatal defect was neglect of the hard political choices mvolved m the

budget process.

Nixon had introduced a similar technique that focused on goals, called

management by objectives, to strengthen his oversight of the executive branch.

He directed twenty-one departments and agencies to prepare rank-order lists of

their principal objectives. These presidential objectives then became the stand-

ard for monitoring the units' performances. Management by objectives focused

fu-st on immediate objectives, then on intermediate objectives that could be

achieved in a fiscal year, and finally on long-term goals.205 Other than to con-

tinue multiyear budgeting introduced by Carter, Reagan demonstrated little

interest in planning. George H. W. Bush, although neglecting domestic policy

planning, was committed to, and actively involved m, foreign and defense policy

planning. Generally, planning has been more successful in these areas than in

domestic policy, and future presidents will always need to engage in national

security planning. Clinton's proposals for reforming health care and the wel-

fare system included planning that Unked them to the five-year deficit reduction

that was integral to the 1994 budget. But he exhibited little plannmg after the

Republicans assumed control of Congress in 1995. Moving toward a balanced

budget then became the overriding concern. In the Clinton administration s

final years, creating a legacy was more unportant than plannmg.

With a heavy emphasis on pursuing legislative victories during its early

months, the George W. Bush administration did not show much attention to plan-

rung, with the notable exception of developing a coherent energy policy. Just two

weeks into the new administration, Bush named Cheney to head a task force that

released its recommendations on May 17, 2001, after meetmg largely in secret.

The administration's proposals focused primarily on ways to increase the supply

of energy rather than conserve its use—encouraging oil and natural gas explora-

tion, bmlding electric transmission infrastructure, encouraging the use of coal,

and supporting nuclear power generation.206 But questions arose about whether

an "energy industry that put its financial backing solidly behind Bush's election

has received a plan that offers support for every major form of energy production

and distribution."207 The symbolic core of the proposals was to open the Arctic

National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The Senate repeatedly rejected it in

dramatic showdown votes over three separate Congresses.

One could also argue that Bush's failed effort to reform Social Security,

launched amidst much fanfare in 2005, was an example of long-range plamung.

Unique among government programs. Social Security is required by law to plan

3z8 The President and the Government

on a. seventy-five-year timeline, but that requirement reduces confidence in

policymakers' ability to project so far ahead. Similarly, Obama's efforts to reach

a "grand bargain" with House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, that would trim

$3 trillion from spendmg while mcreasing revenues by $1 trillion over a decade is

a version of planning. Although the details of the plan were never fully announced,

it would have needed to curtail spending in Medicare and find ways to restruc-

ture other entitlement programs, mcluding Social Security. The slow economic

recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009 (see chapter 9) sunilarly made

planning difficult.

Conclusion: The Frustrating Search for Control

Can the president lead the executive branch? Many of the studies discussed in

this chapter raise doubts.208 Although presidents have substantial formal powers

and managerial resources, they wrestle with the problem of controlling their own

branch of government. Their capacity to direct its many departments and agencies

in the implementation of administration policies is limited by bureaucratic com-

plexity and fragmentation, conflict between the presidency and the bureaucracy,

external pressure and influence on the bureaucracy, and the extreme difficulty of

establishing an effective management system within the government.

Important milestones in this effort can be found throughout the twentieth

century. Roosevelt created the EOP in 1939, providing his successors with a criti-

cal group of presidential loyalists and policy experts independent of bureaucratic

pressures. Johnson's enthusiastic endorsement of the program planning budgeting

system in 1966 started a series of experiments in using the budget as a planning

instrument. Nixon's centralization of decisions in the White House is a strategy his

successors have emulated. Carter established the potential as well as the limits of

using reorganization as a management tool, and his sponsorship of the CSRA cre-

ated a new cadre of presidential allies in the civil service.

Reagan came closest to assembling these instruments of control into a coherent

administrative strategy, a consensus that prevails more than three decades after

he assumed office.209 Reagan's centralized control of appointments fashioned a

relatively unified "team" by making ideological compatibility with his goals the

principal criterion for selection. Reagan also used cabinet councils as a means to

link the White House staff with cabinet officials in directing policy efforts. Most

important, he used the budget to enforce his spending priorities on departments

and agencies: He reversed the traditional pattern of budget preparation from the

Executive Politics 329

bottom up, in which agencies attempt to protect their bases, and instituted top-

down budgeting, with presidential and 0MB decisions being detennmative.210

Finally, Reagan attempted to accomplish policy change administratively by estab-

lishiag procedures for 0MB review of regulations, diminishing the intensity of

regulatory enforcement, and reinterpreting agency functions and relations with

clientele in accordance with the administration's ideology.211

Reagan's successors learned these lessons of "presidential admmistration and

did likewise.212 Yet each president faces anew the challenges of asserting control.

George W. Bush and his White House aides were attentive students and launched

a comprehensive effort to establish presidential control, but its results were mixed.

Barack Obama faced similar struggles. Donald Trump promised to run government

like a business—but was likely to find that the lessons of private sector manage-

ment had limited applicadon to the administrative presidency.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Arnold, Peri E. Making the Managerial Presidency: Compnhensive Reorganization Planning,

1905-1980. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Borrelli, MaryAnne. The President's Cabinet: Gender, Power, and Representation, Boulder, CO:

LyrmeRienner,2002.

Campbell, Colin. Managing the Presidency: Carter, Reagan, and the Search for Executive Harmony.

Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986. Cohen, Jeffrey E. The Politics of the U.S. Cabinet: Representation in the Executive Branch,

1789-1984. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988.

Cooper; PhUlip J. By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of 'Executive Direct Action, 2nd rev.

ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014.

Cronin, Thomas E. The State of the Presidency, 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980.

Fisher, Louis. Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President, 6th ed. Lawrence:

University Press of Kansas, 2014.

Hart, John. The Presidential Branch: From Washington to Clinton, 2nd ed. Chatham, NJ:

Chatham House, 1995.

Hess, Stephen. Organizing the Presidency, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Brookings, 2002.

Kumar, Martha Joynt, and Terry Sullivan, eds. White House World: Transitions, Organization,

and Office Operations. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003. Lewis, David E. The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic

Performance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Light, Paul C. Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability.

Washington, DC: Brookmgs, 1995. Mayer, Kenneth R. With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power. Pnnceton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Nathan, RichardP.7%eArfBZCTUfrfltwePrasyCTcy.New York: Wiley, 1983.

330 The President and the Government

Pfiffiner, James P. The Managerial Presidency, 2nd ed. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.

-. The Strategic Presidency, 2nd ed. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996.

Warshaw, Shirley Anne. Powersharing: White House-Cabinet Relations in the Modem Presidency.

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Weko, Thomas J. The Politicizmg Presidency: The White House Personnel Office, 1948-1994.

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

RESOURCES ON THE WBB

The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/mdex_docs.php.

Archive ofCRS Reports, digital.library.unt.edu/explore/coUections/CRSR/.

Essays on White House staff offices, http://whitehousebransitionproject.org.

Executive Orders, www.arcMves.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/.

Office of Personnel Management, www.opm.gov.

NOTES

1. John Mintz, "Homeland Agency Launched; Bush Signs Bill to Combine Federal Security

Functions," Washington Post. November 26, 2002, Al.

2. Shawn Zeller, "Civil Service Narrowly Misses Merit-Pay System," CQ Weekly, October 27, 2008,

2864-2865.

3. Brookings Press Briefing, July 15, 2002, "Brookings Report Urges Congress to Revise President

Bush's Homeland Security Proposal," www.brookiDgs.edu/~/media/FUes/events/2002/0715homeland

%20security/200207l5homeland.pdf. Also see David Gunter et al.. Protecting the American Homeland

(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002).

4. Spencer S. Hsu, "A Public Coup for the Secret Service: Agency May Gain Clout after a Move to

Planned Homeland Security Department," Washington Post, August 14,2002, A27.

5. Edward Walsh, "Changing Customs: Can Free Trade Flourish with Focus on Terrorism?"

Washington Post, July 26,2002, A31.

6. Sara Kehaulani Goo, "Fledgling TSA Offers Lessons: Lawmakers Urged Not to Ask Too Much of

New Department," Washington Past, July 22,2002, A13.

7. Walter Pincus, "FEMA's Influence May Be Cut under New Deparbaient," Washington Post, July 24,

2002, A17.

8. Only the staffs of Ridge, Card, and OfBce of Management and Budget director Mitch Daniels were

involved. See Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Govemmg Security: The Hidden Oriyns of American Security

Agencies (Stanford, CA: Stanford Law Books, 2013), 138.

9. Richard E. Cohen, Siobhau Gorman, and Sydney J. Fieedberg Jr., "The Ultimate Turf War,"

National 'Journal, January 3,2003, nationaljoumal.com/members/news/2003/01/0103njl.htm.

10. Siobhan Gorman, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., and Peter H. Stone, "New Department, New Special

Interests," National Journal, December 6, 2002, www.nationaljoumal.com/members/news/2002/12/

1206nj'7.htm.

11. Christopher Lee and Stephen Barr, "New Agency, New Rules—and a Cost: Bush Gets

Management Freedom, and a Measure of Mistrust among Workers," Washington Post, November 14,

2002, A31.

12. Philip Rucker and Robert Costa, "Bannon Vows a Daily Fight for "Deconstruction of the

Adminisbrative State,'" Washin^on Post (February 23, 2017), https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Executive Politics 331

politics/top-wh-strategist-vows-a-daily-fight-for-deconstroction-of-the-admmistrative-state/2017/02/

.23/03f6b8da-f9ea-Ue6-bfOl-d47f8d9b643_story.html?utm_term=.38ba2375fi90

13. Michael D. Shear, "Sibelius Resigns after Trouble over Health Site," New York Times, April 10,

2014,www.nytimes.com/2014/04/ll/us/politics/sebelius-resignmg-as-health-secretary.html?_r=0.

14. Richard Rose, "Government against Subgovemments: A European Perspective on Washington,

in Presidents and Prime Ministers, ed. Richard Rose and Ezra N. Suleiman (Washington, DC: American

Enterprise Institute, 1980), 339.

15. For a view that regards presidents as much more than passive participants in agency design, see

David E. Lewis, Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).

16. James P. Pfiffiier challenges this viewpoint and maintains that presidents tend to overestimate the

opposition they will get from the bureaucracy. See Pfiflher, "Political Appointees and Career Executives:

The Democracy-Bureaucracy Nexus in the Third Century," Public Administration Review (January-

February 1987): 57-65.

17. Hugh Heclo, A Government of Strangers CWashington, DC: Brookings, 1977), 7.

18. Paul C. Light, "The New Tme Size of Government," Research Brief Number 2, Organizational

Performance Initiative, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, August 2006,

wagner.nyu.edu/performance/files/rrue_Size.pdf.

19. Jason D. Mycoffand Joseph A. Pika, Confrontation and Compromise: Presidential and Congressional

Leadership, 2001-2006 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefidd, 2007), chap. 3.

20. Francis E. Rourke, Buremcray, Politics, and Public Policy, 3rd ed. (Boston: Litde, Brown, 1984), 32.

21. See the Congressional Budget Office data on the fiscal 2016 budget at https://www.cbo.gov/

publication/52408 22. Aaron Wildavsky, The New Politics of the Budgetary Process, 2nd ed. (New York: HaiperCollms,

1992), 87-88.

23. David A. Stockman, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (New York Harper

and Row, 1986).

24. Paul C. Light, Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability

(Washington, DC: Brookings, 1995), 32-33.

25. Heclo,^ Government of Strangers.

26. G. Calvin MacKenzie, "Partisan Presidential Leadership: The President's Appointees," in The

Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns, 4th ed., ed. L. Sandy Maisel (Boulder, CO:

Westview, 2002), 267.

27. Jdfrey E. Cohen, The Politics of the U.S. Cabinet: Representation in the Executme Brcinch, 1789-1984

(Pittsburgh: Umversity of Pittsburgh Press, 1988), chaps. 3,4.

28. Thomas E. Cronin, The State of the Presidency, 2nd ed. (Boston: Litde, Brown, 1980), 282.

29. Joel D. Aberbach and Bert A. Rockman, "The Appomtraents Process and the Administrative

Presidenqr," Presidential Studies Quarterly 39:1 (2009): 38-59.

30. Bradley H. Patterson and James P. Pfiffiaer, "The White House OfSce of Presidential Personnd,"

Presidential Studies Quarterly 31 (September 2001): 415-439; and Darid E. Lewis, The Politics of Presidential Appointments (Prmceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

31. James P. Pfifeer, The Strategic Presidency. 2nd ed. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996),

57. See also Usa Rein, "This Beltway Insider Is in Charge of Hiring for the Trump Administration. It's

TAing a While," Washington Post, April 19, 2017, https://www.washingtonpostcom/politics/

this-beltway-insider-is-in-charge-of-hiring-for-the-trump-administration-its-ta]dng-awhile/2017/04/l8/

06feb£20-lbOS-Ue7-bcc2-7dla0973e7b2_story.html?utm_tenn=.6bOcefflLe65b

32. G. Calvin Mackenzie, The Politics of 'Presidential Appointments (New York: Free Press, 1981).

33. Patterson, Pfiffiier, and Lewis, "The White House Office," 5.

332 The President and the Government Executive Politics 333

34. Thomas J. Weko, The Politicizing Presidency: The White House Personnel Office, 1948-1994

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 149-151, 157.

35. Josh Dawsey and Andrew Restucda, "Cabinet Picks Clash with White House over Hirmg,"

Politico, February 22,2017, http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-cabinet-hiring-dash-235250. 36. Thomas J. Weko, The Politicizing Presidency: The White House Personnel Office, 1948-1994

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 149-151, 157.

37. Jod D. Aberbach, "A Reinvented Government, or the Same Old Government?" in The Clinton

Legacy, ed. Colin CampbeII and Bert A. Rockman (New York: Chatham House, 2000), 120; and GwenIfiU,

"Three Women Are Said to Be Candidates for Cabinet Posts," New York Times. December 7.1992. Al.

38.Weko, The Politicizing Presidency, 100-103.

39. John P. Burke, "The Bush Transition in Historical Context," PS: Political Science & Politics 35

(March 2002). 40. John Burke, "The Obama Presidential Transition: An Early Assessment," Presidential Studies

Quarterly 39:3 Quly 2009): 577.

41. Ibid., 591.

42. William A. Galston and E.J. Dionnejr., "A Half-Empty Government Can't Govern: Why Everyone

Wants to Fix the Appointments Process, Why It Never Happens, and How We Can Get It Done,"

Governance Studies at Brookings, December 14, 2010. Also see Burke, "The Obama Presidential

Transition," 594.

43. Peter Baker, "Obama's Team Is Lacking Most of Its Top Players," New York Times, August 23,

2009.

44. Dan Balz, "'It Went Ofi'the Rails Nearly Immediately': How Trump's Messy Transition Led to a

Chaotic Presidency," Washington Post. April 4, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/it-went-

off-the-rails-aImost-immediately-how-trumps-messy-transition-led-to-a-chaotic-presidency/SOl?/

04/03/170ec2e8-Oa96-Ue7-b77c-0047dl5a24eO_story.html?utm_temi=.822cfaa5fc42

45. Rein, "This Beltway Insider Is in Charge of Hiring."

46. See the Political Appointee Tracker compiled by the Partnership for Public Service, and the White

House Transition Project, at https://ourpublicservice.org/issues/presidential-transition/political-

appomtee-tracker.php and http://www.whitehousetransitioaproject.org/appointments/respectively.

47. Tom Ricketts had been nominated as deputy secretary of Commerce, Vincent Viola and then

Mark Green as secretary of the Anny, and PhUip Bilden as secretary of the Navy.

48. Mark W. Huddleston and William W. Boyer, The Higher Civil Service in the United States: Quest for

Reform (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996); and Edie N. Goldenberg, "The Permanent

Government in an Era ofRetrenchment and Redirection," in The Reagan Presidency and the Governing of

America, ed. tester M. Salamon and Michael S. Lund (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1984),

381-404.

49. Chester A. Newland, "A Midtenn Appraisal—The Reagan Presidency, Limited Government, and

Political Administration," Public Administration Review Gfanuary-February 1983): 15-16.

50. Testimony of Paul C. Light before the Government Reform Committee, U.S. House of

Representatives, May 3,2003,1, www.brookings.edu/testunouy/2003/0505govemance_light.aspx.

51. John Maggs, "Compete or Else," National Journal, July U, 2003, nadonaljournaLcom/members/

news/2003/07/0711njX.htm. For the scorecard designed under Bush, see www.whitehouse.gov/omb/

budintegration/scorecards/agency_scorecaids.hbaal.

52. Office of Management and Budget, "Competitive Sourcing: Conducting Public-Private Competition

in a Reasoned and Responsible Manner," July 2003, www.whitehouse.gov/omb/procurement/comp.

sourc_addendum.pdf. For commentary, see Jia Lyon Yang, "An Evolving Cml Service," National Journal,

July U, 2003, nationaIjoumal.com/members/news/2003/07/07U.nj4.htai.

53. Mick Mulvaney, Director, Office of Management and Budget, to Heads ofBxecutive Departments

and Agencies, "Comprehensive Plan for Refomiing the Federal Government and Reducing the Federal

Civilian Workforce," 0MB Memorandum M-17-22, April 17,2017.

54..KendalIv. UnitedStates, 37U.S. (12 Pet.) 524 (1838). 55. Panama Rejining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 338 (1934); and Schechter Poultry Co. v. United States, 295

U.S. 495 (1935). 56. Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President. 3rd ed. (Lawrence:

University Press of Kansas, 1991), 98; and Theodore J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism, 2nd ed. QSevf York:

Norton, 1979), chap. 5.

57. Morris P. Fiorina, Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT:

Yale University Press, 1989).

58. Rourke, Bureaucracy, Politics, and Public Policy, 74.

59. MaryAnue Borrelli, The President's Cabinet: Gender, Power, and Representation (Boulder, CO: Lynne

Rienaer,2002),15.

60. Quoted in James Pfiffaer, The Modern Presidency, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA.: Thomson-Wadsworth,

2005), U9.

61. "Grading the Cabinet," National Journal, January 24, 2003, nationaljournal.com/members/

news/2003/01/0l24njl.htm. 62. Cad M. Cannon, "The OId-Timers," National 'Journal, May 22,1999,1387.

63. "The Cabinet's Keeper," National Journal, January 24, 2003, nationaljoumal.com/members/

news/2003/01/0t24nj2.htm. 64. Andrew Rudalevige, "'The Deader': Issue Management and the Bush White House," in The

George W. Bush Legacy, ed. Colin Campbell, Bert A. Rockman, and Andrew Rudalevige (Washington, DC:

CQPress, 2007), 147.

65. Anne B. Komblut, "White House Moving to Repair Troubled Relationship with Cabinet,"

Washington Post, March 9,20U..

66. Peter Beinart, "Chuck Hagel's Rise and Fall Had Nothing to Do with Foreign Policy," Atlantic,

September 24, 2014, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/ll/chuck-hagels-rise-and-fall-had-

nothiug-to-do-with-foreign-policy/383125/.

67. Cannon, "The Old-Timers," 1388; Philip Bump, "Erie Holder and a Brief History of Cabmet

Tenures," The Fix, September 25, 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/09/25/

eric-holder-and-a-brief-history-of-cabinet-tenures/. For the past five administrations, Bump reports an

average tenure of Cabinet members of 3.46 years for Reagan, 3.06 for George H. W. Bush, 4.08 for

Clinton, and 3.59 for George W. Bush. Obama's average calculated by the authors; it is skewed upwards

slightly by Tom Vilsack's eight-year service and Ame Duncan's seven years.

68. Cohen, The Politics cf the U.S. Cabinet, 173-176.

69. Borrdli, The President's Cabinet, 46-52. This pattern held true for seven of the eight admimstia-

tions included in the study, with George H. W. Bush being the exception. Because Bush had been elected

as a sitting vice president after eight years of Republican control, BorreUi suggests that Bush drew on his

extensive network of experienced acquaintances and that the pool of outsiders was depleted. Bon-elli's

research covered administrations from FDR through George W. Bush, except for Truman, Kennedy, and

Johnson. Also see Nelson W. Polsby, "Presidential Cabinet-Making Lessons for the Political System,"

Political Science Quarterly (Spring 1978): 15-25.

70. Cronm, The State of the Presidency, 270-272.

71. Ibid., 282-285.

72. In The Politics of the U.S. Cabinet, Cohen finds a distinction between the older and the newer outer

departments based on "the importance of interests in creating the department and on the complexity of

334 The President and the Government

its interest group environment" (144). The older departments—Agdculture, Commerce, Labor, and

Interior—were created in response to demands from single interests .that continue to provide them with

some protection from presidential contcoL The newer departments tend to operate in "more complex

interest group environments that may result in "intradepartmental conflict among advocates of the

competing interests" (138,139).

73. Maiyanne BorreUi, "The Contemporary Presidency: Gender Desegregation and Gender Integration

in the President's Cabinet, 1933-2010," Presidential Studies Qmrterly 40:4 (2010): 734-749. 74. Daniel A. Medina, "U.S. Cabinet Shakeups through the Years, Charted," Quartz, November 25,

2014,qz.com/301812/us-cabinet-shakeups-through-the-years-charted/.

75. Pfiffaer, The Strategic Presidency. 41-42, 65-66; Stephen Hess, Organhmg the Presidency, 2nd ed.

CWashmgton, DC Brookmgs, 1988), 200; and Shirley Anne Warshaw, Powerskaring: White House-Cabinet

Relations in the Modem Presidency (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 228-233.

76. Richard F. Fenno Jr., The President's Cabinet (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), 132.

77. Ronald Brownstein and Dick Kirschten, "Cabinet Power," National Journal, June 28, 1986,

1582-1589.

78. James A. Bames, "Like His Home-State Razorbacks.. . Clinton's Cabinet Plays to Wn," National

Journal, April 9,1994,852-853. Also see Warshaw, Powersharing, 198-227.

79. For discussions ofpie-9/U management practices, see Lizette Alvarez and Eric Schmitt, "Cheney

Ever More Powerful as Crucial Link to Congress," New York Times, May 13, 2001, Al. On the general

operation of the administration, see John F. Harris and Dan Balz, "Conflicting Image of Bush Bmerges,"

Washington Post, April 28, 2001, Al. Also see Alexis Simendinger, "Stepping into Power," National

Journal, January 27,2001,246-248.

80. Karen M. Hult, "The Bush White House in Comparative Perspective" (paper delivered at the con-

ference on "The George W. Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment," Woodrow WUson School, Princeton

University, Aprfl 25-26,2003), 20. For a detafled account of Bush's derision maldng in the aftermath of

9/11, see Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).

81. Andrew Rosenthal, "Sununu's Out and Skinner Is In, but White House Troubles Persist,"

New York Times, February U, 1992, Al, A13. Also see Burt Solomon, "Bush's Renovated Inner Circle Has

a Bit of a Reagaaesque Look," National Journal, February 8,1992, 346-347.

82. Andrew Rosenthal, "Sununu's Out and Skinner Is In, but White House Troubles Persist,"

New York Times, February U, 1992, Al, A13. Also see Burt Solomon, "Bush's Renovated Inner Circle Has

a Bit of a Reaganesque Look," National Journal, February 8,1992,346-347.

83. James P. Pfiffiier, "Organizing the Obama White House," in Obama in Office, ed.. James A.

Thurber (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 20U), 80.

84. Will Englund, "Czar Wars: Who's on Obama's Front Line," National Journal Special Report,

nationaljoumalspedalieport.com/NatJoumal_CzarWars.pd£

85. Jake Tapper, "Obama Will Name Ron Klain as Ebola Czar," October 17, 2014, www.cnn

.com^OWlO/iy/politics/ebola-czar-ron-ldain/index.html.

86. U.S. Constitution, Article 2, section 1.

87. Senate Historical Office, "Tie Votes," www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/four_column_tabk/

Tie_Votes.htm.

88. However, that was not true for the first four years of that position's history, when it was placed

eighth.

89. Paul C. Light, Vice-Presidential Power: Advice and Influence in the White House (Baltimore, MD:

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). 90. Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, "A Different Understanding with the President," Washington Post,

June 24,2007, Al.

Executive Politics 335

91. Jo Becker and Barton Gellman, "A Strong Push from Backstage," Washington Post, June 26, 2007, Al.

92. For an especially thorough review ofBiden's service as vice president, see Jody Baumgartner and

Thomas F. Crumblin, The American Vice Presidency: From the Shadow to the Spotlight (Lanham, MD:

Rowman and Utdefidd, 2015), chap. 9. My thanks to Professor Baumgartner for allowing me to read an

advance copy.

93. Joseph A. Pika, "Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, and the New Vice Presidency," in The Presidency and the

Political System, 9th ed., ed. Michad Nelson (Washington, DC: CQPress, 2009).

94. WU Englund, "What Kind of Vice President Will Biden Be?" National Journal, March 7, 2009,

www.aadonaljouinal.com/njmagazine/nj_20090307_9943.php.

95. Helene Cooper, "As the Ground Shifts, Biden Plays a Bigger Role," New York Times, December 13,,

2010,1. One indication of this Republican trust: Biden was the only person asked to eulogize both Strom

Thurmond and Jesse Helms at their funerals. Evan Osnos, "The Biden Agenda: Reckoning with Uh-aine

and Iraq, and Keeping an Eye on 2016," New Yorker, July 28,2014.

96. Lucy McCalmont, "Obama: 2016 Voters WiU Want That New Car Smell," Politco, November 23,

2014,www.politico.com/story/2014/U/obama-2016-voters-will-want-that-new-car-smeU-ri3U8.html.

97. Gil Troy, "Copresident or Codependent? The Rise and Rejection of Presidential Couples since

• World War H," in The Presidential Companion: Readings on the First Ladies, ed. Robert P. Watson and

Anthony J. Eksterowicz (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 253.

98. Valerie A. Sulfaro, "Afifective Evaluations of First Ladies: A Comparison ofHillaiy Clinton and

Laura Bush," Presidential Studies Quarterly 37:3 (2007): 488.

99. Anthony J. Eksterowicz and Kristen Paynter, "The Evolution of the Role and Office of the First

Lady," in Watson and Eksterowicz, The Presidential Companion.

100. Kay M. Knickrehm and Robin Teske, "First Ladies and Policy Making: Crossing the Public/

Private Divide," in Watson and Eksterowicz, The Presidential Companion, 248.

101.Ibid.

102. Ibid., 249.

103. "Ttanscript: Michdle Obama's DNC Speech," CNN.com, July 26, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/

2016/07/26/politics/transcript-michelle-obama-speech-democratic-national-convention/.

104. Cottfe, "Leaning Out."

105. Bucldey v. Vales, 421 U.S. 1 (1976).

106. In 1973, President Nbcon named Howard J. Phillips acting director of the Office of Economic

Opportunity (OEO), an agency Nixon planned to dismantle. PhiUips began to phase out its programs

and withhold funds from it. Sen. Harrison A. Williams, D-NJ, took legal action to force Nbcon either to

submit Phillips's name to the Senate for confirmation or to stop dismantling the OEO. A U.S. court of

appeals ruled that Phillips was illegally holding office and enjoined him from further actions. See James

P. Pfffiier, The President, the Budget, and Congress: Impoundment and the 1974 Budget Act CBoulder, CO:

Westview, 1974), U.6-U.7. The effort was thwarted, but the decision did not setde the issue.

107. Three notable examples are the Senate's rejection of former senator John Tower, R-TX, to be sec-

retary of defense in 1989, its long delay in acting on the nomination of Henry Foster Jr. to be surgeon

general of the United States, and its narrow support in 2001 for former senator John Ashcroft, R-MO, to

become attorney general.

108. Christopher J. Deering, "Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don't: The Senate's Role in the

Appointment Process," in The In-and-Outers, ed. G. Calvin McKenzie (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1987), 119. Also see G. Calvin McKenzie, ed., Innocent until Nominated (Washington,

DC:Brookings,2001). 109. Anthony Lake withdrew from consideration as nominee to head tfae OA in March 1997 after

concluding that he would be subjected to endless delays and partisan criticism. Juliana Gruenwald,

336 The President and the Government Executive Politics 337

"Tenet Appears Likely to Win Confirmation as OA Chief," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report,

March 22,1997, 712-714. On the Holbrooke nomination, see Philip Shenon, "Holbrooke Nomination

Passes One Hurdle but Faces Another," New York Times, July 1, 1999, A6; Phfflp Shenon, "Let's Slow

Down on Holbrooke's Case, Lott Says," New York Times, July 23, 1999, A9; Eric Schmitt, "When

Nomination Turns to Wrangling to Impasse," New York Times, July 28,1999, A16; and MUes A. Pomper,

"Holbrooke Confirmed as U.N. Envoy," CQ Weekly, August 7,1999, 1961-1962.

110. Senate Committee on Govemmeutal Affairs, Policy and Supporting Positions (Washington, DC:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000), also known as the "plum book." For a fuUer discussion, see

Bradley H. Patterson and James P. PfiGfaer, "The White House Office of Presidential Personnel,"

Presidential Studies Quarterly 31 (September 2001): 420. Patterson and Pfiflher identify 1,125 full-time positions subject to confirmation, including 185 ambassadors, 94 U.S. attorneys, 94 U.S. marshals, 15 in

international organizations, and 4 in the legislative branch.

Ul. Anne Joseph O'ConneU, "Staffing Federal Agendes: Lessons from 1981-2016," Brookings

Institution, Apdl 17, 2017, https://www.brookmgs.edu/research/staffing-federal-agendes-lessons- from-1981-2016/

lt2.0'Connell, "StafBng Federal Agencies."

U3. Robert Brodsky, "Momentum Is Building to End Secret Holds," Government Executive, June 23,

2010,www.govexec.com/story_page.cfi-n?fflepath=/daUyfed/0610/062310rbl.htm&orefr=search.

U4. The Washington Post maintained a running tally of positions at "Head Count," projects.

washmgtonpost.com/2009/federal-appomtments.

U5. Humberto Sanchez, "A Landmark Change to Filibuster," CQ Weekly. December 2, 2013,

1992-1993, library.cqpress.com/cqweekly/weeklyTeportU3-000004387403; andjeremy W. Peters, "In

Landmark Vote, Senate Limits Use of the Filibuster," New York Times, November 21, 2013, wwwjiytimes

.com^Oia/U^/us/politics/reid-sets-m-motion-steps-to-limit-use-of-filibuster.htmlPpagewantedsl.

116. Adriel Bettdheim, "Senate Goes Nuclear," CQ Weekly, December 2, 2013, 19841989, library.

cqpress.com/cqweekly/weeklyreportU3-000004387396.

U7.https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/829133645055135750.

U.8. Nancy Cook, Josh Dawsey, and Andrew Restucda, "Why the Trump Administration Has So

Many Vacancies," Politico, April U, 2017, http://www.poUtico.com/story/2017/04/donald-tamnp- white-house-staflf-vacancies-237081

119. Rebecca Adams, "Wth Nominees Stalled, Agencies Wait for Change," CQ Weddy, February 22, 2010,428-429.

120. Jon R. Bond, Richard Fkisher, and Glen S. Krutz, "Malign Neglect: Evidence That Delay Has

Become the Primary Method of Defeating Presidential Appointments," Congress & the Presidency 36:3 (2009): 226-243.

121. Henry B. Hague, Maeve P. Carey, Michael W. Greene, and Maureen Bearden, "The Noel

Canning Decision and Recess Appointments Made from 1981-2013," Congressional Research Service

Memorandum, February 4, 2013, 4, democrats.edworltforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkfoice.

house.gov/ffles/documents/m/pd?ecess%20Appointments%201981-2013.pdf. Also see Pamela C.

Corley, "Avoiding Advice and Consent: Recess Appointments and Presidential Power," Prestdential Studies Quarterly 36 (December 2006): 671.

122 The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, March 27, 2010, www.whitehouse.gov/the-

press-office/president-obama-announces-recess-appomtments-key-administration-positions.

123. House Republicans had refused to adjourn Congress and thereby necessitated the three-day

mock sessions. Both houses must agree to adjourn.

124. Charlie Savage, "Recess Appointments RuUng to Be Appealed," New York Times, March 13,2013,

www.nytunes.com.proxy.nss.udd.edu/2013/03/13/us/poUtics/obama-to-appeal-rulmg-curbing-recess- appointments.html.

125. Charlie Savage, "Between the Lines of the Recess Appoiitfmeats Derision," New York Times, June

26,2014, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/25/us/annotated-supreme.court-recess-dedsion.html.

126. Michael D. Shear et al., "Trump Fires Justice Chief Who Defied Him," New York Times, January

31,2017, Al.

127. Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926).

128. Humphrey's Executor v. United Stales, 295 U.S. 602(1935).

129.Rsher, Constitutional Conflicts. 79.

130. PHH Corporation v. CFPB, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (No. 15-U.77),

October 11, 2016. The case was appealed from a three-judge panel of the circuit court to the full court,

with oral arguments in the appeal held in late May 2017.

131. Phillip J. Cooper, By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action, 2nd rev ed.

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2014), 15, 81-83. By April 4, 2001, Bush had revoked SUE of

Clinton's executive orders. Hult, "The Bush White House in Comparative Perspective," 27, n. 77.

132. A comprehensive list of executive orders from January 1937 can be accessed at www.archives

.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/. For actions taken by President Trump, see https://www

.whitehouse.gov/briefaig-room/presidential-acdons.

133. Kenneth R. Mayer, With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2001), 4.

134. For exceUent discussions of presidential use of executive orders in the areas of information secrecy

and intelligence organization as well as in civil rights, see Mayer, With the Stroke of a Pen, chaps. 5,6.

135. Julie Hirschfeld Davis, "Obama's Immigration Action Has Precedents, but May Set a New One,"

New York Times, November 20, 2014, www.nytunes.com/2014/U/21/us/poUtics/obamas-immigratioa-

decision-has-precedents-but-may-set-a-new-one.html?_r=0.

136. "Obama: I Will Use My Pen and Phone to Take on Congress," CBS News, January 14,2014, www

.cbsnews.com/news/obaina-i-wiU-use-my-pen-and-phone-to-take-on-congress/.

137. Amalgamated Meat Cutters v. ConnaUy, 337 F. Supp.737(1971).

138. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 581 (1943); and Korematsu v. United States, 323

U.S. 214 (1944). 139. Hult, "The Bush White House in Comparative Perspective," 27.

140. For an interpretation that Clinton relied more heavily on such instmments after the Republicans

conbroUed Congress, see Aberbach, "A Reinvented Government," 128; and Alexis Simendinger, The

Paper Wars," National Journal, July 25, 1998,1732-1739. Some reports confuse distinctions among the

different forms of unilateral presidential action rather than adhering to the definition of executive orders

maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration.

141. Mayer, With the Stroke of a Pen, 70.

142. Ibid, Table 3.3,82.

143.Ibid.l02.

144. Kenneth R. Mayer and Kevin Price, "Unilateral Presidential Powers: Significant Executive

Orders, 1949-99,' Presidential Studies Qwrterty 32 CTune 2002): 375.

145. Cooper, By Order of the President, 13, 90-91. For a useful firsthand description of his tactics, see

Elena Kagan, "Presidential Administration," Harvard Law Review 114 (2001): 2245-2385.

146. As quoted in Kenneth S. Lowande, "The Contemporary Presidency: After the Orders:

Presidential Memoranda and Unilateral Action," Presidential Studies Quarterly CDecember 2014): 732.

147. Barack Obama speech, "Full text October 26,20U," historymusirigs.wordpress.com/20U/10/26/

full-text-ortober-26-20ll-president-barack-obama-unveils-speech-student-loan-debt-retief-plan/.

148. Youngstwn Sheetand Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952).

149. Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, "Public Opinion in Clinton's First Year: Leadership

andResponsiveaess/'inRenshon, The Clinton Presidency, 201.

338 The President and the Government

150. Andrew Rudalevige, "The Contemporary Presidency: Executive Orders and Presidential

Unilateralism," Presidential Studies Quarterly 42:1 (2012): 138-160.

151. Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).

152. Joseph Cooper, "Postscript on the Congressional Veto," Political Science Quarterly (Fall 1983):

427-430; Barbara Hiakson Craig, The Legislative Veto: Congressional Control of Regulation CBoulder, CO:

Westview, 1983), 139-150; and Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts, 152.

153. Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts, 150-152.

154. Richard M. Pious, The American Presidency CNew York: Basic Books, 1979), 256-257.

155. AUen Schick, "The Road to PPB: The States of Budget Reform," Public Administration Review

(December 1966): 243-258.

ISS.Wildavsky, The New Politics of the Budgetary Process, 436-440.

157. Becca Staiiek, "Budget Director Says President Tramp's Promise to Pay Off the National Debt

was "Hyperbole,"' The Week, April 12, 2017, http://theweek.com/speedreads/691841/budget-director-

says-president-trumps-promise-pay-national-debt-hyperbole.

158. Alien Schick, The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process (Washington, DC: Brookmgs, 1995), 1-A.

159. Bob Woodward, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House (VSe-w York: Simon and

Schuster, 1994).

160. Daniel J. Palazzolo, Done Deal? The Politics of the 1997 Budget Agreement (Chatham, NJ: Chatham

House, 1999).

161. See, for example, John Hudak, Presidential Pork White House Influence over the Distribution of

Federal Grants CWashington, DC: Brookings Institution 2014); and Douglas L. Kriner and Andrew

Reeves, "Presidential Particularism and Divide-the-DoIIar PoKtics," American Political Science Review 109

CFebruary 2015): 155-171.

162. Louis Fisher, Presidential Spending Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), chap.4.

163. Ibid., 148.

164. Vivian Vale, "The Obligation to Spend: Presidential Impoundment of Congressional

Appropriations," Political Studies (1977): 508-532.

165. Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998). The case can be found at supct.law.comell.edu/

supct/htmVhistoricsAJSSC_CR_0524_04l7_ZS.html.

166. Steven T. Dennis, "A Promise for a Line-Item Vote," CQ Weekly Online, January 22, 2007,

252-252, Ubiary.cqpress.com/cqweekly/weeklyreportUO-000002433724.

167. Brian Friel, "Line-Item Veto Gets Hearing Wednesday," National Journal, May 24,2010.

168. Charles S. dark, "All Agencies Looped into Campaign to Cut Government Waste," National

Journal, June 14,2,011.

169. Peri Amold concludes his authoritative study of "the managerial presidency" by observing that

"no modem president has fuHy managed the executive branch." He further argues that the managerial

conception of the presidency is untenable" because it "places impossible obligations on presidents" and

creates unrealistic "public expectations of presidential performance." Peri E. Arnold, Mating the

Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning, 1905-1980 (Prmceton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1986), 361-362.

170. Andrew Rudakvige, Managing the President's Program: Presidential Leadership and Lepslatbie

Policy Formulation CPrinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 7.

171.Ibid.

172. Hess, Organizing the Presidency, 230-231.

173.Ibid.

174. Fred I. Greenstein, "Political and Political Leadership: The Case of Bill Clinton," in Renshon, The

Clinton Presidency, 141,142.

Executive Politics 339

175. Burt Solomon, "Clinton's New Taskmaster Takes Charge," National Journal, August 6, 1994,

1872.

176. Todd S. Purdum, "The Ungreening of the White House Staff," New York Times, December 22,

1996,E10.

177. Karen Hughes returned to Texas in July 2002.For a discussion of the Bush staff system, see Hult,

The Bush White House in Comparative Perspective."

178. Mark Leibovich, "Pressure Cooker: Andrew Card Has the Recipe for Chief of Staff Down Pat,"

Vfashinffon Post, January 5,2005, Cl.

179. Tom Hamburger, "Inquiry of Rove Brings Unit out of Obscurity," Seattle Times, April 24,2007,

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003678550_mvestigate24.html.

180. Alexis Simendinger, "Stepping into Power," National Journal, January 27, 2001,247.

181. See, e.g., Shirley Aime Warshaw, The Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney (Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press, 2009).

182. James P. Pfiffaer, "Organizing the Obama White House, in Thurber, Obama in Office.

183. David B. Cohen, Karen M. Hult, and Charles E. Walcott, "The Chicago Can: The Chieft of Staff

in the Obama White House," Social Science Quarterly 93:5 (December 2012): U.01-U26.

184. Ibid.

185. Terry M. Moe, "The Politicized Presidency," in The New Direction in American Politics, ed.

John B. Oiubb and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1985), 235-271.

186. Samuel Kemell, "The Creed and Reality of Modem White House Management," in Chief 'of 'Staff:

Twenty-Kve Years of Managing the Presidency, ed. Samuel Kemell and Samuel L. Popkin (Berkdey.

University of California Press, 1986), 228.

187. Justin S. Vaughn, "The Contemporaiy Presidency: Reconsidering Presidential Policy Czars,"

Presidential Studies Quarterly 44:3 (2014): 522-536.

188. See, e.g, Sarah EUison, "Inside the Kushner-Bannon Civil War," Vanity Fair, April 14, 2017,

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/jared-kushner-steve-bannon-white-house-dvil-war; Peter

Baker, Glenn Thrash, and Maggie Haberman, "Jared Kushner and Ivanka Iftump: Pillars of Family-

Driven West Wing," New York Times, April 15, 2017, https://mobUe.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/us/

politics/jared-kushner-ivanka-trump-white-house.html

189. Andrew Rudalevige, "Rivals, or a Team?" in Bert Rockman, Andrew Rudakvige, and Colin

Campbell, cds.. The Obama Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects (Washington, DC: CQ. Press, 2012).

190. Henry B. Hogue, "Presidential Reorganization Authority: History, Recent Initiatives, and

Options for Congress," CRS Report R42852, December 12,2012, fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42852.pdf.

191. John R. Dempsey, "Carter Reorganization: A Midterm Appraisal," Public Administration Review

CTanuary-February 1979); 74-7S; and Aisold, Mating the Mmayrial Presidency, chap. 10.

192. Herbert Kaufinan, "Reflections on Administrative Reorganization," in Setting National Priorities:

The 1978 Budget, ed. Joseph A. Pechman CWashington, DC: Brookings, 1977), 403.

193. Harold C. Relyea, "93026: Executive Branch Reorgani2ation," CRSIssueBrief, December 6,1996,

www.fas.org/spp/civU/crs/93-026.htm.

194. Harold C. Relyea, "Executive Branch Reorganization and Management Initiatives," CRS Issue

Brief for Congress, September 23,2003, digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/pemialinlc/meta-crs-4579:l.

195. Dempsey, "Carter Reorganization," 75.

196. Ronald C. Moe, "The "Reinventing Government' Exercise: Misinterpreting the Problem,

Misjudging the Consequences," Public Administration Review (March-ApriI 1994): 112.

197. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the JEntrepreneurial Spirit Is

Transforming the Public Sector from Schoolhouse to State House, City Hall to Pentagon (Reading, MA:

Addison-Wesley, 1992), m.

34° The President and the Government

198. Donald F. Ketd, Reinventing Government: A Fifth Year Report Card, Center for Public Management

Report 98-1 (Washington, DC: Brookings, September 1998).

199. In "The "Reinventing Government' Exercise," Ronald Moe argues that Clinton's effort substi-

tutes results for processes and amounts to abandonment of public law as the basis of political accounta-

bility (112). Political scientist James Q, Wilson doubts whether in the era of big government "political

accountability can any longer be equated with presidential power." James Q. Wilson, "Reinventing

Public Administration," P.S.: Political Science and Politics (December 1994): 671. Well-known manage-

ment consultant Peter Drucker called for a new theory that "asks what the proper functions ofgovern-

ment might be and could be ... [and] what results government should be held accountable for." Peter

Drucker, "Really Remventing Government," AtfflnA'cMonfA^, February 1995,61.

200. Edwin Chen, "Bush Aims to Privatize Many Federal Jobs," Los Angeles Times, November 15,

2002, http://artides.latimes.com/2002/nov/15/nation/na-competel5.

201. Paul Singer, "By the Horns," National Journal, March 25,2005, nationaljoumal.com/members/

news/2005/03/0325njl.htm. 202. See Executive Order 13781, March 13,2017; Mulvaney, "Comprehensive Plan."

203. Aaron WQdavsky, Speaking Truth to Power CBoston: Litde, Brown, 1979), 120.

204.Ibid.

205. Richard Rose, Managing Presidential Objectives (New York: Free Press, 1976), chap. 6.

206. Peter Behi, "Energy Plan to Fuel Long Fight; at Issue Is Environmental Cost of Plentiful, Cheaper

Power," Washington Post, May 15, 2001, A9.

207. Peter Behr, "Bush Places His Bet on Energy Industry," Washington Post, May 18,2001, El.

208. See, for example, Arnold, Ma]<ing the Managerial Presidency; Colin Campbell, Managing the

Presidency: Carter, Reagan, and the Search for Executive Harmony CPittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh

Press, 1986); and Rose, Managing Presidential Objectives. Also see Walter WilKams, Mismanapng America:

The Rise of the Anti-Anatytic Presidency (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990).

209. Nathan, The Administrative Presidency.

210. Alien Schick, "The Budget as an Instrument of Presidential Policy," in Salamon and Lund, The

Reagan Presidency and the Governing of America, 113.

211. Lester M. Salamon and Alan J. Abramson, "Governance: The Politics ofRetrenchment," in The

Reagan Record, ed. John L. Palmer and Isabdl V. SawhiU (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1984), 97; and

Joseph A. Pika and Norman C. Thomas, "The President as Institution Builder: The Reagan Case,"

Governance (October 1990): 444-447.

212. Elena Kagan, "Presidential Adminisb-ation," Harvard Law Review U4 (2001): 2245-2385;

Andrew Rudalevige, "The Obama Administrative Presidency: Some Late-Term Lessons," Presidential

Studies Quarterly 46 (December 2016): 868-890.