The Executive Branch

1
The Executive Branch
2
Obama

• Are individual personalities now more important
  than parties?

3
Bush
Can the President control public discussion?
4
Clinton, Reagan, Nixon
Does a president have to be moral in order to
be a good president?
5
Nixon
Do Americans need a President to have trustworthy
character?
6
Eisenhower
Must the modern President always be involved in
everything or have a solution for everything?
7
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
What role does confidence in the President have
on American morale?
8
FDR
Does a lot of action and policy creation make a
President great? Can a President be great if
not much is changed during their Presidency?
9
What did the framers of the Constitution want?

• Although the Constitutional convention was
  conducted in secret, the framers sent out a press
  release to counteract rumors surrounding their
  actions.
• Tho we cannot, affirmatively, tell you what we
  are doing we can, negatively, tell you what we
  are not doing we never once thought of a king.
• Alexander Hamilton proposed a virtual monarchy
  a president that was appointed for life but
  it was flatly rejected.
• Many debates at the convention surrounded how
  much power to give the president.
• The system of checks and balances between the
  three branches is a vivid reminder of how fearful
  they were of putting too much power in the hands
  of one person.

10
The Roles of the Presidentsee packet handout

• CONSTITUTIONAL ROLES
• Chief of State
• Chief Executive
• Commander-in-chief
• Chief Diplomat
• Chief Legislator

• ROLES EVOLVING FROM TRADITION
• Chief of Party
• Voice of the People
• President of the West
• Protector of the Peace
• Manager of the Prosperity

11
Presidential Paradoxes

• Paradox 1 It is a position of extreme power, yet
  there are numerous limitations on that power.
• Paradox 2 Many presidents desire a second term
  but very few of them achieve success in that
  second term.
• Paradox 3 The American people expect a president
  who is willing to compromise to get something
  done, yet we accuse the president of being weak
  when he does.

12
Paradox 1 It is a position of extreme power, yet
there are numerous limitations on that power.

• Not only does the president represent wishes of
  317 million Americans, but his actions impact the
  over 7 billion citizens of the planet.
• The ability to control our nuclear arsenal and
  our military is a powerful one, yet Congress has
  the constitutional authority to declare war.
• Even so, many presidents have conducted military
  engagements without a war declaration from
  Congress. (JFK/LBJ/Nixon Vietnam GHWB
  Persian Gulf War Reagan Grenada GWB Obama
  Iraq Afghanistan)

13
Paradox 2 Many presidents desire a second term
but very few of them achieve success in that
second term.

• If a president is to achieve any legislative
  success, it is generally done in the first term.
• The first 100 days of any presidency is called
  the Honeymoon Period. Most major legislation
  is done at that time. (FDRs New Deal LBJs
  Civil Rights Act)
• If the presidents party has control of Congress
  in the second term, he is more likely to see his
  legislative agenda enacted. If not, he becomes a
  lame duck for four years, as Congress is not
  very likely to enact anything he proposes.
• Scandals tend to come to light during a second
  term. Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton were all under
  fire in the second term for various scandals.
  Obama may be facing the same with Benghazi and
  the NSA Edward Snowden cases
• Only one recent incumbent president, LBJ, chose
  not to run for a second term when he could have
  done so. The controversy surrounding Vietnam
  made winning a second term improbable.

14
Paradox 3 The American people expect a president
who is willing to compromise to get something
done, yet we accuse the president of being weak
when he does.

• Because you simply cannot make everyone happy, a
  president finds that over time, it may be
  necessary to reach a compromise with the leaders
  of the other party to achieve his goals.
• Congress and the president constantly negotiate
  to turn policy into action.
• The art of the compromise is something that was
  highly prized in the past, but in the latter half
  of the 20th century, has been interpreted as a
  sign of weakness.
• GHW Bushs Read my lips, no new taxes pledge,
  and more recently, Obamas compromise to keep the
  GW Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were considered
  by some to be weak.
• But in their defense, a president may decide it
  is better to get half of what they want then to
  get nothing at all.

15
Constitutional Requirements

• Qualifications
• Art. II
• natural-born citizen
• 14 years of US residency
• 35 years of age
• THATS IT!!!

16
Constitutional Powers

• Powers/duties are very limited
• executive power enact/enforce law
• Military Power
• Diplomatic Power
• Appointment Power
• Veto Power

17
Military Power

• Commander in Chief (civilian control)
• Prez can send armed forces abroad
• Congress has not declared war since 12/8/1941
• Korea, Vietnam, Iraq? all Constitutional
• War Powers Resolution, 1973
• Prez must report to Congress within 48 hours
  after deployment
• If Congress does not OK in 60 days, must withdraw
• Check on president, attempt to limit president

18
Diplomatic Power

• Create treaties with foreign nations with Senate
  permission, 2/3 Senate approval (advice and
  consent)
• Executive agreement no permission needed, deal
  between heads of state, not binding to next
  administration
• Diplomatic Recognition power to officially
  recognize foreign gov. as legit
• Ex. 1917-1933 USSR not recognized
• Ex. 1949-1970s China not recognized

19
Appointment Power

• Power to appoint ambassadors, public officers,
  and Supreme Court Judges with Senate approval
  (advice and consent)
• Civil Service System most gov. jobs under
  executive filled based on merit system, NOT
  presidential appointment (Pendleton Act
  Garfield assassination)

20
Veto Power

• Veto return the bill to house it originated
• (no action within 10 days bill becomes law)

21
Strengthening the Presidency

• Washington set precedent for future
• Jackson frequent use of veto power
• Lincoln took Commander in Chief to new levels
  of power during the Civil War
• TR - Bully pulpit domestic policy
  Progressive Era reforms Big Stick Diplomacy
  foreign policy power
• FDR huge influence on fiscal and monetary
  policy with New Deal, checked by Supreme Court
  strong WW2 alliance with Churchill

22
Executive privilege

• The right to privacy of conversation between
  advisors and prez
• Why?
• Separation of powers prevents branches from
  sharing internal workings
• Privacy is needed for candid advice from advisors
  with out political pressure

23
Executive Privilege

• US v. Nixon
• Nixon refused to hand over recorded
  conversations, claiming Exec. Privilege
• Court ruled in favor of US
• EP cant be used to block the function of the
  federal court procedures

24
Impoundment

• Presidential practice of refusing to spend money
  appropriated by Congress.
• Nixon tried to withhold spending as a way to
  combat inflation
• Budget Reform and Impoundment Act of 1974
  Congress checked that power - president must
  spend funds if they are appropriated by Congress

25
The President as Morale Builder (Voice of the
People)

• Symbolic importance (FDR Great Depression, Bush
  9/11)
• Unify nation
• Carters 1970s malaise speech vs. the sunny
  optimism of Reagan in the 1980 election Carter
  lost Americans dont want to be told bad news
  or feel bad about themselves
• President must boost morale and comfort the people

26
Agenda Setting

• The President can control public policy and
  discussion through
• The media take his case to the people over the
  airwaves
• State of the Union speech 1/28/2014
• Make policy proposals and budgetary requests
• Encourage the Congress to act and publically call
  them out when they dont

27
Executive Orders

• Prez. issues executive orders that have force of
  law a legal way to avoid Congressional approval
  if it is related to executive branch duties or
  Constitutional obligations
• Ex power to enforce the Constitution, treaties,
  laws, etc.
• FDR allowed Japanese internment
• Truman integrate military
• Eisenhower desegregate public schools
• Obama most recently raising min. wage for
  federal contract employees to 10.10 per hour

28
Line-Item Veto???

• Should the President be able to veto certain
  parts of a bill, and not other parts?
• Line-Item Veto Act 1996
• Clinton v. City of New York (1997) law found
  unconstitutional interfered with the framers
  concept of checks and balances
• SCOTUS says that a bill must be signed into law
  in its entirety or veto it and send it back to
  Congress and start over

29
Gridlock

• Divided government Prez and Congress majority
  represent different political parties
• gridlock the inability to accomplish goals
• Con government operation shuts down
• Pro slows the decision making process, example
  of check and balance

30
Vice President(Joe Biden)

• Preside over the Senate, tie breaking vote
• Takes over the presidency if the President cannot
  finish term
• 12th Amendment voters choose President and VP
  together
• Previous to 1804, the candidate who came in 2nd
  was the VP, even if they were from a different
  party (Adams-Fed Jefferson Anti-Fed.)

31
Oh Joe!
32
Presidential Disability and Succession

• 22nd Amendment limited President to 2 terms,
  serving no more than 10 years (2 year over/under
  rule if VP takes over from a Prez.)
• 25th Amendment If the VP office is vacated,
  then the President can select a new VP which is
  approved by Congress prior to this, no VP
  vacancies were ever filled
• Ex. When LBJ took over from JFK, no VP existed.
  That is why we passed the 25th amendment.
• Remember, LBJ was in the car behind JFK and could
  have been killed that day too. Having a VP
  suddenly became VERY important after 1963!

33
White House Office - Structure

• Pyramid model assistants answer to a
  hierarchy up to a chief of staff (few top
  advisors to prez, prez free but isolated)
  Eisenhower, Nixon
• Circular model (wheel and spoke) direct
  contact with staff (many top advisors to prez,
  prez busy but connected) JFK, Carter
• Ad hoc model - combines leadership and
  management tactics that the CEO of a large
  corporation might use. Clinton and G. W. Bush
  used this style, which employs committees, task
  forces, and special advisors to help develop and
  implement policy.
• Significance access to the prez. determines
  which aides or advisors have the most influence
  on presidential decisions

34
The Cabinet

• The cabinet is an informal institution.
  Mentioned in Article II, the Executive article,
  the Constitution speaks of the principal Officer
  in each of the executive Departments.
• The 25th Amendment also discusses the role of the
  cabinet in deciding issues of presidential
  disability.
• Because it was created out of custom, not
  requirement, the cabinet has always been
  perceived to be weak.
• Even though the president conducts meetings with
  the entire cabinet, some question their
  usefulness as a whole group.
• Being experts in one area, and therefore are not
  generally able to add insight to problems outside
  their field of expertise account for this debate
  as to their usefulness.

35
The 15 Cabinet Departments

• In order of seniority and presidential
  succession, they are
• State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior,
  Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health/Human
  Services, Housing/Urban Development,
  Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans
  Affairs, Homeland Security.

36
The White House Staff

• The members of the presidents staff fulfill a
  variety of roles.
• Some are gatekeepers they are very protective
  of the president and those who might try to
  monopolize his time.
• Some staffers are liasons to Congress and other
  executive departments.
• Others are speechwriters, the press secretary,
  and most importantly, the chief of staff, who
  oversees the entire staff.
• Those considered to be part of the White House
  staff are not nominated and approved by the
  Senate. The president has wide discretion in the
  hiring and firing of these individuals. They
  serve at the presidents request and must stay in
  his good graces to maintain employment.

37
The EOP

• Established by FDR in 1939, the Executive Office
  of the President has, like the bureaucracy, grown
  immensely over time.
• With over 10 different departments, the EOP is as
  influential at times, if not more so, than the
  cabinet as a whole can be.
• Each has a separate function we will do a more
  specific breakdown of each part of the EOP in the
  bureaucracy chapter.
• The better known members of the EOP are National
  Security Council (NSC), Office of Management
  Budget (OMB), Council of Economic Advisors,
  Domestic Policy Council, Foreign Intelligence
  Advisory Board and the Office of the Vice
  President.

38
(No Transcript)
39
Kitchen Cabinet

• Beginning with Andrew Jackson, many presidents
  have informal advisors who hold no official
  position.
• Teddy Roosevelt called it his tennis cabinet.
• Warren Harding had the Ohio Gang and the poker
  cabinet.
• Hoover, who exercised regularly, had the
  medicine ball cabinet.
• And every president has a gang of friends back
  home that are consulted on a regular basis.
• Breaking with precedent, Clinton put his wife
  Hillary in charge of his health care reform
  initiative.

40
The Tools of Presidential Power

• FORMAL
• The Cabinet
• The White House Staff
• The Executive Office of the President (EOP)
• INFORMAL
• Kitchen Cabinet
• Perquisites (perks)
• Mass media

41
The Nuclear Age

• Cold War tensions and the advent of nuclear
  weapons increased presidential power in the most
  drastic way.
• The football the briefcase with nuclear
  launch commands is guarded by a military aide
  and a secret serviceman at all times and is
  always at the presidents disposal.
• The collapse of the Soviet Union made it
  difficult to keep track of how many nuclear
  weapons were out there and where they were.
• Terrorists with dirty bombs or suitcase bombs and
  rogue nations like North Korea and Iran are part
  of the new nuclear threat.

42
Foreign Affairs

• The post World War 1 isolationism of the 1920s
  and 30s is a thing of the past.
• World War 2 the advent of the United Nations
  have contributed to the way modern presidents
  approach foreign affairs.
• The Cold War with its containment theory became
  the basis for foreign policy. Keeping communism
  from spreading, especially in the Americas, was
  the driving idea from 1945 to 1990.
• After 9/11, destroying terrorist organizations
  has chiefly impacted the way we deal with foreign
  policy.

43
Domestic Affairs

• The central question governing domestic affairs
  since 1932 is
• To what degree, and in what ways, do the
  American people want the government to be
  involved in their every day lives?
• Do we want big government or small
  government? What does big government mean to a
  Republican? A Democrat?
• As the government bureaucracy grows, so does the
  presidents power. The president oversees the
  federal bureaucracy a group that now totals
  over 4 million.

44
The Mass Media

• Beginning with FDRs Fireside Chats on radio,
  to the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960, and now the
  internet and YouTube channels, the mass media
  magnifies the presidency and the role of the
  person who is president.
• The president can go directly to the people to
  present his point of view and enlist their
  support.
• The major networks make prime time (8-11pm)
  coverage readily available to the president.
• Nightly newscasts show the presidents daily
  activities in 20-60 second sound-bites.
• Modern presidents must now have media advisors
  and press secretaries to craft the message for
  maximum impact.
• INTERNET, YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER

45
Perquisites

• The president has, at his disposal, numerous
  benefits (perquisites, or perks) to use to
  accomplish his goals.
• He can offer rides home to Congressmen on Air
  Force One and use the time to lobby them to help
  his legislative agenda.
• He can invite them to the White House to spend
  the night in the Lincoln Bedroom, where he can
  wine and dine them.
• He can give them priority seating at such events
  as official state dinners or White House
  concerts, and, if they have children, invite the
  family to the annual Christmas tree lighting or
  the Easter egg roll.

46
The Mass Media (The Press)

• The press secretary is the conduit through which
  the president communicates to the press, and in
  turn, the nation.
• Being a buffer, the press secretary can field
  questions that the president may not want to, or
  may not be ready to answer himself. In this
  way, the president can test market his ideas.
• The White House Office of Communication as a
  whole are the gatekeepers of information coming
  out of the White House. They also stylistically
  (rhetorically) craft the message to make it as
  palatable (convincing) as possible.
• Eisenhower had the first televised (but edited)
  press conferences JFK had the first live,
  unedited ones.

47

• Presidents Gone Wrong
• The Watergate and
• Lewinsky Scandals

48
25th Amendment Gerald Ford

• Remember, the 25th Amendment dictates what
  happens when a president is disabled and cant be
  president, resigns, or what to do if there is a
  vacancy in the Vice Presidents position.
• Gerald Ford is the first person to experience
  first hand the 25th Amendment not once but
  twice!
• In 1973, Nixons VP, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned
  under a cloud of controversy. He was accused of
  tax evasion while Governor of Maryland.
• Ford was appointed VP by Nixon, as specified by
  the 25th Amd., and his appointment was approved
  by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
  (Ford was House Minority Leader at the time).

49
The Watergate Scandal

• Telling the Watergate story is difficult at best.
  In a nutshell, here are the major plot points
• Nixons White House aides (Haldeman Erlichman)
  had a dirty tricks organization outside the
  White House to disrupt the Democrats election
  plans in 1972.
• Thieves were paid to break into the Watergate
  Hotel Office complex in WDC to electronically
  bug the Democrats headquarters. They were
  caught.
• Hush up money was paid to them. But two
  Washington Post reporters (Woodward Bernstein),
  following the trail of who paid who what money,
  and with the help of an anonymous source, traced
  it back to the White House.
• Congress held investigatory hearings in which a
  parade of witnesses appeared. One man, Alexander
  Butterfield, eventually revealed that all Oval
  Office conversations were audio taped.

50
What is Executive Privilege?

• If Congress could get a hold of the tapes, they
  might be able to get the evidence they needed to
  discern if Nixon 1) knew about the break in and
  2) had any role to play in paying the hush-up
  money.
• Congress subpoenaed the tapes, Nixon refused to
  give them, claiming executive privilege.
• Not in the Constitution, but by custom, the
  president maintains his right to withhold the
  executive branch documents from the other two
  branches based upon the idea of separation of
  powers.
• Because the tapes were allegedly evidence of a
  crime, the US Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in the case
  U.S. v. Nixon (1974) that executive privilege
  stops when criminal activity is alleged.
• (There was a vacancy on the court at that time.)

51
Watergate Aftermath

• The Democrat controlled House Judiciary Committee
  passed three articles of impeachment (obstruction
  of justice, violating constitutional rights of US
  citizens, and defying the subpoena for the
  tapes).
• Before the committee could send it to the whole
  House for a vote, Nixon resigned on August 9,
  1974.
• Gerald Ford, the man appointed VP just 10 months
  earlier, was now sworn in as president. He
  became the only person to become president,
  having never run for the office outright.
• In September 1974, Ford pardoned Nixon for any
  wrongdoing or crimes he may have committed
  against the United States.
• Still debated as controversial, Ford stood behind
  his decision up until his death in 2006.

52
Clinton Impeachment

• Much like the Watergate story, the public needed
  a score card to keep up with all the names and
  allegations.
• Again, in a nutshell An investigation into an
  allegedly crooked land deal in Arkansas while
  Clinton was governor led to an examination of his
  personal life. At this point, a woman named
  Paula Jones accused him of sexual harassment
  while he was governor.
• The investigation of her claims by special
  prosecutor Kenneth Starr led to the discovery of
  another affair with a 21 year old White House
  intern named Monica Lewinsky.
• Clinton, denying the charges on TV and under
  oath, later had to recant when a woman named
  Linda Tripp, a friend of Lewinsky, turned over
  taped conversations of Lewinsky bragging about
  the affair.
• The Republican controlled House voted to impeach
  258-176. The trial was held in the Senate in
  January of 1999. Clinton was found not guilty on
  February 12, 1999 on two counts (perjury
  obstruction of justice) 55-45 and 50-50. A 2/3
  majority (67) votes were needed to convict and
  remove him from office.

53
Presidential Rankings

• See handouts

54
SPARK notes Conclusions

• Presidential paradoxes exist, which may account
  for our continual fascination with the
  presidency.
• The roles of the President are wide and varied
  and our expectations of him are enormously high.
• Although the power of the presidency has grown
  over Congress, Congress still can wield great
  power over the Executive branch as a whole.
• Scandals have made the public more suspicious of
  presidential power and the media more likely to
  dig up whatever dirt they can.
• Presidential rankings can be biased based upon
  the political leanings of those doing the
  ranking. But all in all, there is general
  agreement about the 10 best and 5 worst.