The constitutional means of removing a president from office is by impeachment and subsequent conviction. Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution provides that the president may be removed from office upon impeachment by a majority vote of the House and conviction by two-thirds of the Senate of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Just what type of offense qualifies as a “high crime and misdemeanor”? It’s difficult to say. Just two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, have ever been impeached under these provisions, and both were impeached for primarily political reasons: JohnPhoto of Bill and Hillary Clinton from December 19, 1998, thanking son was charged with illegally firing a cabinet member, Democratic members of the House of Representatives who voted pardoning traitors, and impeding ratification of the against impeachment. Fourteenth Amendment; Clinton was accused of lying to a grand jury about his sexual relationship with an intern and for obstructing justice. Both impeachment: The first step men were acquitted on all charges by the U.S. Senate and served out their respective terms. in a two-step process outlined The only president to resign was Richard Nixon, who was accused of obstructing justice in the now infamous Watergate scandal. Nixon left office less than halfway through his second term in 1974 under the looming threat of impeachment. In practice, unpopular presidents are usually turned out of office not by removal, but by a failed reelection. In recent times, three sitting presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush) lost reelection bids; Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for reelection in 1968 when frustration with his unpopular Vietnam War policy undermined his prospects for victory in the November election. When President John Adams was defeated for reelection in 1800 and turned over the White House to arch-rival Thomas Jefferson, he helped establish a precedent of peaceful transition between chief executives that has held firm to this day, despite the hostile feelings that sometimes exist between successive presidents. In the case of the president’s removal by death, resignation, or inability to serve, the Constitution requires that the powers and duties of the president “devolve” on the vice president. When William Henry Harrison died barely a month after becoming president in 1841, Vice President John Tyler took over all the powers, duties, and responsibilities of the presidency, rejecting any notion that he was simply there to serve as a more limited “acting president” until the next election. Since Tyler, seven vice presidents have become chief executive in this manner, including most recently Lyndon Johnson, who assumed office after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. Of the last six vice presidents thrust unexpectedly into office, four—Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson—eventually secured election as presidents in their own right. in Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution to remove a president or other high official from office. The House of Representatives, by majority vote, may impeach if the official has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors.” The second step requires a conviction in the Senate by a two-thirds vote. 7.2 The Evolution of the American Presidency The U.S. Constitution places as many limitations on the office of the presidency as it grants the president specific powers and duties. Wary of the excessive authority wielded by the king of England, most of the Founders rejected Alexander Hamilton’s radical suggestion that the president should be elected for life; instead, the Founders designed a chief executive who would be powerful enough to respond quickly when necessary, but also would be limited by lack of lawmaking power and the need to gain congressional approval for most long-term commitments, whether foreign or domestic. Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 179 AP Images/Greg Gibson died of natural causes while still serving as president, including FDR, who died in 1945, only a few months into his unprecedented fourth term. The presidency has evolved over the past two centuries not so much because of any constitutional expansion of the chief executive’s powers, but rather through practice, tradition, and the personal energy of some presidents. The changing dynamics of policymaking in the United States from a mostly local focus to a national phenomenon has given presidents the opportunity to exert unprecedented influence over the process, and many have done exactly that. In many ways, the growth of the power of the presidency has paralleled the growth of the United States. North Wind / North Wind Picture Archives The President as “Chief Clerk” of the United States, 1789–1836 The earliest presidents established the office as a forceful power in the national government. Still, even the most popular presidents of the period were careful to avoid interfering with the clear legislative prerogatives of Congress. Several played a major role in helping steer America away from or toward war, despite the inclinations of Congress. But the truly dominant chief executive would not emerge until many years later. When George Washington, the immensely popular former general of the Continental Army, agreed to be nominated as the nation’s first president, wideMilitary hero William Henry Harrison spread public confidence in his abilities helped secure immediate respect for won election to the presidency in 1840. this new office. Serving as the first chief executive from 1789 to 1797, WashYet for all of his strengths as a war hero, ington established various precedents that helped preserve a republican form he was ultimately a victim of his own of government in the nation’s infancy. Washington rejected entrapments of roystubbornness. Inauguration Day, March alty such as being referred to as “Your Majesty,” preferring instead to be called 4, 1841, was one of the coldest and most “Mr. President.” As a practical matter, Washington consulted constantly with the blustery days of the year in Washington, other branches—at one point he even asked the Supreme Court for an adviD.C. Harrison refused to wear a hat and sory opinion about his own interpretations of a foreign treaty. (The Court decoat, and his nearly two-hour inaugural clined his invitation for comment.) Washington also established the executive’s address was one of the longest in history. influential role in crafting public policy, siding with his Secretary of Treasury One month later Harrison died of pneumonia, probably contracted during Alexander Hamilton’s plans for industrialization and the creation of a national his inaugural speech. He was the first bank, and striving to maintain an isolationist foreign policy. Often serving as a president to die in office, but perhaps mediator between differing positions in his administration, Washington rejected the last not to bundle up warmly for his the less interventionist, farmer-friendly policies favored by his secretary of state, inauguration day celebration. Thomas Jefferson.2 For better or worse, most subsequent presidents would be forced to work within the framework of a divided party system that originated as an intramural fight within the Washington administration. During the four decades after Washington’s retirement, most presidents served more as chief “clerks” than as chief “executives,” doing Congress’s bidding and performing mostly administrative duties on behalf of the federal government. Upon winning the presidency in 1800, Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809)3 put into practice his own theory of “that government is best which governs least.” Accordingly, the Jefferson administration abolished many judgeships, trimmed government economic planning efforts, and scaled back the armed forces. The one crucial exception to such downsizing occurred in the area of land acquisition: Jefferson arranged for the purchase of the vast Louisiana territory from France, more than doubling the physical size of the country. A presidency characterized by limited executive powers soon confronted unexpected challenges. When tensions between Great Britain and the United States erupted into the War of 1812, President James Madison (1809–1817) found himself hampered both by the small size of the federal army and by the lack of a powerful national bank capable of funding the government’s prosecution of the war. This war with Britain revealed the limited powers of the president to influence national matters without strong institutional resources at his disposal. Madison’s successor, James Monroe (1817–1825), exercised most of his influence in foreign 180 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. affairs. Monroe’s Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who himself was president from 1825 to 1829, helped craft the “Monroe Doctrine,” which declared that the United States would thereafter regard as an “unfriendly act” any attempt by a European nation to increase its possession or otherwise intervene on the American continent. Meanwhile, Congress led the way in domestic matters, crafting key compromises over slavery and paying off much of the public debt incurred during the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson, who served as president from 1829 to 1837, remade the presidency into an office of tremendous political power. The military hero of the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, Jackson came to the White House as a political outsider but with overwhelming popular support. Capitalizing on this resource, Jackson wielded presidential power in a way that few of his predecessors had, dismissing hundreds of officeholders, forcing out cabinet members who angered him, using his constitutionally authorized power to veto Congress’s bill to recharter the Second National Bank of the United States, and introducing the so-called spoils system of doling out federal offices to individuals as rewards for political service.4 The Weakened Presidency in the Wilderness Years, 1837–1900 Andrew Jackson raised the profile and authority of the presidency to unprecedented heights, but its ascendancy was largely a product of his own popularity and energetic personality. The pre–Civil War presidents who followed Jackson also proved to be much weaker. The model of president as chief clerk seemed once again alive and well. Perhaps the only effective president during this antebellum period was James K. Polk (1845–1849), who presided over a period of incredible westward expansion. Polk exercised his powers as commander-in-chief to instigate a successful war with Mexico over the Texas territory; his foreign relations successes included the acquisitions of the California and Arizona territories after the Mexican-American War, and the Oregon territory (including the current-day states of Oregon and Washington) from the British.5 More typical were Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan during the 1850s; the failures of both to address growing sectional tensions over slavery left pro-slavery and abolitionist interests alike bitterly frustrated. The presidency of Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) thrived due to a rare combination of factors. Frequently underestimated as a great political mind, Lincoln was confronted with the single greatest threat in the history of the republic—the secession of 11 Southern states and the great battle between North and South to restore the Union. Although Lincoln proceeded carefully in his prosecution of the war against the South for fear of alienating crucial border states, those acts he did undertake were bold and unprecedented. At the outset of the war in April 1861, with Congress not even in session, Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports and called on the Northern states to provide 75,000 soldiers for battle. He (at least in one court’s opinion6) unconstitutionally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, by which anyone arrested is to be brought before a judge or court to determine if there is sufficient reason to hold the person for trial. Suspending the writ allowed Lincoln to hold some criminal defendants indefinitely. The president also spent freely from the U.S. Treasury without congressional approval. Although Congress ultimately ratified all his actions after the fact, Lincoln’s bold exercise of authority essentially reinterpreted Article II into a source of executive authority during emergencies. Following Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Congress, dominated at that time by radical Republicans determined to punish the former Confederate states, quickly reasserted its control over the nation’s agenda. For the remainder of the century, Congress would determine domestic policy. Indeed, after the former Civil War hero Ulysses Grant left office in 1877, no sitting president won election to a second term until William McKinley accomplished the feat in 1900. Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 181 Library Of Congress/Getty Images President Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address in 1863. The Birth of the Modern Presidency and Its Rise to Dominance, 1901–1945 The beginning of the twentieth century marked the onset of a new era for the American presidency. In an increasingly global and interconnected world, the power of the presidency grew disproportionately. By the time two world wars had concluded, the presidency had emerged as the premier institution in American politics. In the fall of 1901, William McKinley was assassinated during the first year of his second term, thrusting into office his young and ebullient vice president, 42-year-old Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s presidency (1901–1909) ushered in a new era of presidential authority. He injected a forceful energy and enthusiasm into the office, using his position as “a bully pulpit” (Roosevelt’s own words). As one observer noted, “He wanted to be the bride at every wedding; the corpse at every funeral.” Unlike many of his predecessors, Roosevelt was willing to gamble political capital on bold assertions of presidential power: his efforts to break up corporate monopolies were narrowly upheld by the Supreme Court and forced Congress to enact new antitrust legislation. Roosevelt, through the creative use of executive orders, increased the acreage of national parks fivefold. When Roosevelt became president, foreign affairs were assuming an ever more significant place in the nation’s list of priorities. In less than two full terms in office, Roosevelt encouraged a Panamanian revolution, initiated the building of the Panama Canal, won a Nobel Peace Prize for mediating war settlements between Japan and Russia, and sent the nation’s naval 182 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. fleet around the world as a demonstration of American military authority.7 The first president to travel to foreign lands, Roosevelt expanded the Monroe Doctrine by advancing the “Roosevelt Corollary,” which declared that the United States would serve as a police power to maintain stability in the Western Hemisphere by opposing any European interference in the affairs of Latin American nations. In foreign affairs, where force of personality is so important, Congress proved little match for this charismatic president. As president from 1913 to 1921, Woodrow Wilson achieved some significant successes and suffered some great failures: his aggressive industrial reform agenda marked a successful first term in office; during his second term he eventually led the United States into World War I and received accolades at the Paris Peace Conference following the war. But Wilson’s hopes for a stable international order based on a system of collective security ultimately confronted political reality, as Senate leaders whom Wilson had excluded from the peace talks rejected U.S. membership in the League of Nations. Still, Wilson’s presidency illustrated just how much more powerful the presidency had become since the mid-nineteenth century. In the early part of the twentieth century, the president began to dominate the political landscape. The onset of the Great Depression during Herbert Hoover’s presidency (1929–1933) and the looming threat of a second world war in the late 1930s called for a new and innovative approach to the office. Franklin Delano Roosevelt placed his own indelible stamp on the nation by transforming the presidency into an institution marked by permanent bureaucracies and well-established repositories of power. FDR tackled the Great Depression with New Deal policies that tied the economic fate of millions of Americans to the fate of the American government: a Social Security program of old-age insurance and unemployment insurance would provide income for the elderly and the jobless; the government would guarantee deposit accounts in commercial banks through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); and the government would provide federal jobs to the unemployed to perform various public works. Roosevelt communicated extensively with the American people through the media— millions listened to his “fireside chats” on the radio. By restoring public confidence with his energetic support for New Deal programs, FDR redefined the presidency as a source of national leadership. Future presidents would enjoy significant resources of power simply by taking the helms of the formidable institution FDR established. As indicated in Table 7.1, FDR would go down in history as one of the greatest U.S. presidents, largely because of these domestic accomplishments. New Deal: A set of aggressive federal domestic policies proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s and passed by Congress as a response to the Great Depression; it ultimately transformed the presidency into an institution marked by permanent bureaucracies and well-established repositories of power. Still, like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, FDR felt especially at home in foreign affairs. Although adhering to popular sentiment that the United States should maintain strict neutrality in foreign wars, in the early days of World War II, Roosevelt met with British royalty and the British prime minister as a show of support, initiated a “lend-lease” policy by which Britain could purchase war supplies from the United States as long as it paid cash and transported the supplies in its own ships, and traded Britain 50 destroyers in exchange for rights to build military bases on British possessions in the Western Hemisphere—all without the consent of Congress. When America did enter the war in 1941 after the attack on Pearl Harbor, presidential power was put on full display. FDR met personally with British and Soviet leaders to craft military plans; then, near the end of the war, the Allied leaders carved Europe and the Middle East into “spheres of influence” that would establish an American presence across the Atlantic Ocean for decades. With the president playing a dominant role in both national and world affairs, the imperial presidency that took root at the beginning of the twentieth century came to fruition by the close of World War II. The Imperial Presidency Comes Under Attack, 1945–1980 By the end of World War II, the presidency had emerged as a very powerful office. FDR’s fireside chats on the radio linked average Americans to the occupier of the White House in a fashion that was unimagined by the Founders. In the late 1940s, television became a central influence in American life, and presidents honed their skills with this new medium to further nurture their relationship with the public. Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 183 The 10 Greatest Presidents of All Time More than half a century ago, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. began the process of polling historians to rank the presidents of the United States. Recent surveys continue to borrow heavily from Schlesinger’s original methodology. In 2009, the C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership ranked the opinions of presidential historians and “professional observers of the presidency.” Another poll of presidential scholars was conducted by the Wall Street Journal in 2005, with support from the Federalist Society. Interestingly, the results vary. Thus while Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt usually top most lists, presidential scholars substantially disagree on how to complete the list of greatest presidents. C-SPAN Survey—2009 Top 10 Wall Street Journal Poll—2005 Top 10 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Lincoln Washington Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt, T. Truman Kennedy Jefferson Eisenhower Wilson Reagan Washington Lincoln Roosevelt, F. Jefferson Roosevelt, T. Reagan Truman Eisenhower Polk Jackson Now recognized as powerful chief executives, those who followed in the footsteps of FDR confronted a new and unprecedented threat to American national security: the presence of a second world military superpower—the Soviet Union. With presidential authority greatest in the area of national security, waging the Cold War that began in the late 1940s consumed much of these presidents’ energies. Harry Truman, FDR’s immediate successor, proclaimed the “Truman Doctrine” in foreign policy, by which the United States pledged military and economic aid to any nation threatened by communism or the Soviet Union. Like Truman, Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy also focused their administrations’ energies on containing the Soviet communist threat. As long as the Soviet Union challenged American interests, the presidency would remain the focus of attention in the American political system. Great Society: A set of aggressive federal domestic policies proposed by President Lyndon Johnson and passed by Congress in the 1960s that further enhanced the role of the presidency. Not until the presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1963–1969) was a president able to enact a sweeping domestic agenda similar to FDR’s New Deal. Johnson’s Great Society program featured more than 60 reform measures, including increases in federal aid to education, the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, and a voting rights act for African Americans. But Johnson’s domestic policy success was offset by his failures in foreign policy. Exercising his authority as commander-in-chief, Johnson sent more than half a million troops to Vietnam to fight an increasingly unpopular war. The failure to stop the communists from taking over South Vietnam was laid squarely at the feet of Johnson, just as earlier foreign policy successes had been credited to his predecessors. The presidents who followed Johnson came under increasing attack in the 1970s. Richard Nixon achieved foreign policy success by improving America’s relationship with the Soviet Union and China, but in 1974 he became the first president in history to resign from office before the end of his term when the Watergate scandal enveloped his presidency. Jimmy Carter’s presidency (1977–1981) was beset with hardships, as the nation’s economy faltered in the 1970s. Carter’s failure to resolve an Iranian revolution that included the taking of 50 American hostages further cemented his image as an inept commander-in-chief. Carter thus became the first elected president since 1932 to lose a reelection bid. By the end of the 184 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. “Presidential Leadership; The Rankings,” Wall Street Journal Online, September 12, 2005, http://legacy.c-span.org/ PresidentialSurvey/presidential-leadership-survey.aspx. Table 7.1 1970s, the modern presidency created by Theodore Roosevelt and brought to new heights by Franklin Delano Roosevelt found itself increasingly under attack from an emboldened Congress and a frustrated public. Redefining the Presidency in an Era of Divisiveness, 1981–2012 The election of Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980 marked the return of the chief executive as an unmatched force over American politics. No president in the twentieth century (save perhaps FDR) could match Reagan’s prowess as a “great communicator”; by speaking directly to the American people in terms they could understand, Reagan bypassed Congress and enjoyed early victories with passage of an economic program marked by tax cuts, decreased social spending, and a marked increase in defense spending. Reagan’s legislative success was all the more remarkable given that he was working with a divided-party government. The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives in every year of Reagan’s presidency; his legislative success thus contrasted favorably with that of previous presidents who had struggled to get legislation passed by a Congress controlled by the opposite party. In foreign policy, Reagan’s aggressive program of military buildup combined with his own hardline position against the Soviet Union is credited with helping bring about the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the breakup of the USSR, and thus victory in the Cold War. In addition, Reagan’s immense popularity allowed him to weather numerous crises and scandals in a way that few of his predecessors had. Reagan’s successors also faced the reality of divided-party government at different points in their respective presidencies. George H. W. Bush took the lead in foreign policy, overseeing the dismantling of the Soviet Union and forging international alliances prior to mounting a successful war against Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. However, by compromising with the opposition Democrats on tax legislation, he frustrated some of his more conservative constituencies and undermined his efforts at reelection. Bill Clinton became the first Democratic president in a half century to serve two full terms. Clinton appealed to moderates largely by in effect borrowing central elements of the opposition party’s domestic program—His three main legislative successes (free-trade agreements, budget cutting, and welfare reform) were all programs that had been more closely associated with Republicans than Democrats at the time Clinton took office in the early 1990s. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush moved quickly to position his administration as the eminent world leader in an emerging “war on terrorism.” His early efforts to fight terrorism at home and abroad enjoyed congressional support from both parties: his aggressive military intervention against the Taliban-controlled government in Afghanistan in late 2001 proved extremely popular and helped cement his administration’s image of toughness and resolve. Yet when the Bush administration expanded the war on terrorism to include military intervention in Iraq, justified on the basis of inaccurate reports that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, these same policies became much more divisive. Though victorious in his 2004 reelection bid, George W. Bush’s second term proved even more difficult than the first, with more Americans questioning the war in Iraq as U.S. casualties mounted. By the end of his second term, Bush’s ratings had dropped to below 30 percent—in part the consequence of significant problems in the economy, exacerbated further by the Wall Street crisis of September 2008. Barack Obama’s presidency began—as most presidential terms do—buoyed by feelings of goodwill coming from both sides of the political aisle. A clear majority of the public hoped he would successfully tackle the economic crisis that befell the nation in 2008. They also hoped the young president was serious about his promises to bring “change” to Washington. Obama’s “honeymoon period” ended quickly, however, as the details of his administration’s proposals for reform were laid bare for debate. President Obama benefitted from strong Democratic majorities in Congress; he muscled through his legislative agenda almost entirely on the strength of those majorities, and with little support from Republicans. The $787 billion fiscal stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) passed with the help of Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 185 just three Republican senators and no Republican House members; the landmark health care reform bill of 2010 was even more partisan, garnering not a single Republican vote from either branch of Congress. Facing an emboldened Republican majority following the 2010 midterm elections, Obama soon found himself at loggerheads with the GOP House leadership—this led to a series of threatened government shutdowns prior to the 2012 election, and a near paralysis of government following President Obama’s successful reelection bid in 2012. Indeed, during the 2013 and 2014 congressional sessions, President Obama proved unable to make headway on legislation addressing gun violence or immigration reform, two subjects that he had trumpeted as his administration’s top priorities. Obama thus learned an important political lesson: the rhetoric of bipartisanship does not easily translate into bipartisan votes. 7.3 Express Powers and Responsibilities of the President Article II of the Constitution provides that the president of the United States holds executive power, but it is not very detailed about what constitutes executive power. In fact, the Constitution lists only four specific powers of the president: (1) commander-in-chief of the armed forces, (2) power to grant reprieves or pardons, (3) power to make treaties (subject to Senate approval), and (4) power to make certain appointments, including those of ambassadors and justices of the Supreme Court (again subject to Senate approval). Despite this limited number of constitutionally expressed powers, presidents today serve many important functions in the American political system. Noting these varied roles, political scientist Clinton Rossiter referred to the many different hats that the president must wear during the course of a week, or even during just one day.8 Some of these are specified in the Constitution and laws of the United States, which conceive of a limited executive, but one who possesses the authority to react quickly and energetically to unexpected crises. Head of State The office of the presidency combines the political and symbolic functions that are often divided in other countries. As the nation’s head of state, the president fulfills numerous formal duties and obligations on behalf of the country. Most visiting foreign heads of state meet directly with the president; sometimes those visits include an official state dinner at the White House hosted by the president and attended by key political leaders from throughout Washington. Article II of the Constitution also carves out a more formal role for the president in foreign affairs; the president’s role in receiving ambassadors and other public ministers has often been interpreted as granting the president the discretion to give or deny official recognition to foreign governments. Although such a power may seem mostly honorary, it can have a real political impact in some circumstances. President Woodrow Wilson’s refusal to recognize the new government of Mexico in 1913 caused considerable consternation among American supporters of the Mexican revolution, and led to growing tensions between the two neighbors. More recently, American presidents during the 1970s and 1980s refused to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, buttressing Israel’s own hardline stance against that organization. Chief Executive and Head of Government In his Second Treatise of Government, political theorist John Locke argued that executive power was so fundamental that it predated civil society.9 According to Locke, legislatures were ill-equipped to enforce their own laws because they need “perpetual execution,” and legislatures sit only infrequently. Moreover, if the same entity both made and enforced the laws, it might be tempted to “suit the law to their own particular advantage,” regardless of the law’s language. Another political theorist, Baron de Montesquieu, also advocated the separation of legislative and executive powers—specifically, he decried the tendency of legislatures to exert too much influence over the executive, increasing the opportunity for abuse.10 186 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. AFP/Getty Images President Barack Obama greets Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, in June 2012. Influenced in part by these arguments, the Framers of the Constitution vested all executive power in the president alone. Unfortunately, they failed to define that power with any specificity. At a minimum, the Constitution grants presidents alone the responsibility to execute the laws of the United States, which encompasses the implementation and enforcement of measures passed by Congress—in other words, to see that Americans actually abide by those laws in practice. A president’s failure to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”—whether intentionally or due to negligent administration of his subordinates—can have obvious implications for the effectiveness of such laws. Actual levels of execution sometimes lie squarely within the discretion of the chief executive. Presidents Reagan and Clinton, for example, defined antitrust laws in markedly different ways simply by offering contrasting approaches to the execution of those laws. During the 1980s, Reagan’s lack of enthusiasm for government intervention in the marketplace translated into the prosecution of far fewer antitrust actions than had been brought by previous administrations. By contrast, under President Clinton the Justice Department applied the antitrust laws enthusiastically, such as when it brought suit against the Microsoft Corporation in 1997 for monopolistic practices that stifled competition in the software industry. More recently, Republican President George W. Bush and the Democrats in Congress sparred not just over the written terms of the USA Patriot Act, but also over the Bush administration’s aggressive enforcement of those provisions against some individuals, which gave the laws far more teeth than was originally anticipated. The president’s power to see that laws are faithfully executed also implies some power to hire and fire those charged with administrative authority to help execute federal laws. The power of appointment thus stands among the president’s most important executive powers.11 The Constitution specifically authorizes the president to appoint ambassadors and other public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other federal officers under his charge. Additionally, the president appoints all federal judges. Most of these appointments require the consent of the Senate. In recent years, senators have subjected the president’s nominees to intense scrutiny, occasionally even rejecting the president’s choices. President George W. Bush withdrew his second choice for the Supreme Court, White House Counsel Harriet Miers, before she had even received a formal Senate vote in October 2005. Chapter 7 power of appointment: The president’s constitutional power to hire and fire those charged with administrative authority to help execute federal laws, such as ambassadors; federal judges, including those on the Supreme Court; and all other federal officers under the president’s charge. Most of these appointments require the consent of the Senate. The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 187 Although Supreme Court nominees often receive the most intense investigation, the Senate may occasionally question other executive appointments. In 1989, the U.S. Senate rejected President George H. W. Bush’s choice for defense secretary, John Tower, due to allegations that Tower had a drinking problem. Barack Obama’s first choice as secretary of health and human services, the former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, withdrew his name from consideration in February 2009 amid a growing controversy over his failure to accurately report and pay income taxes. The president’s removal power has been a source of controversy as well. The Supreme Court’s decision in Myers v. United States (1926) established that chief executives have the power to remove “purely executive officers” without congressional consent. Although independent agency heads can be removed only by congressional action, cabinet heads and military officials can be terminated by the president alone. In one famous instance during the Korean War, President Truman decided in 1951 to fire the extremely popular General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the United Nations forces in Korea. reprieve: The president’s constitutional authority to reduce the severity of a punishment without removing the guilt for those who have violated the law. pardon: The president’s constitutional authority to relieve an individual of both the punishment and the guilt of violating the law. Not only is the president responsible for the enforcement of all federal laws, he is also authorized by the Constitution to grant reprieves and pardons to individuals who violate those laws. The Founders vested this power in the chief executive because they believed that the prerogative of mercy, on which the pardon power is based, is most efficiently and equitably exercised by a single individual, as opposed to a body of legislators or judges. A reprieve reduces the severity of a punishment without removing the guilt; a full pardon relieves an individual of both the punishment and the guilt. A president’s decision to exercise the pardon power can invite considerable negative comment and political backlash. Not surprisingly, then, most presidents wait until the end of their presidential terms to grant pardons. Less than two months after being denied his bid for reelection in 1992, President George H. W. Bush pardoned six officials for their involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal from 1987, including former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger. President Clinton issued 140 pardons on his last day in office in 2001, including one to Marc Rich, who had previously fled the country for tax evasion and whose wife was a major contributor to Clinton’s political campaigns. No president received more criticism for granting a pardon than Gerald Ford, who as vice president succeeded to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. Ford’s pardon of his former boss for involvement in the Watergate scandal helped undermine his prospects for election to the White House in his own right two years later. Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images Chief Diplomat President Richard Nixon and Vice President Gerald Ford conferring on August 9, 1974, the day Nixon resigned from office. 188 Chapter 7 As chief diplomat of the United States, the president has the power to negotiate treaties and appoint diplomatic representatives to other countries, including ambassadors, ministers, and consuls. The president’s power over treaties is limited to negotiation and execution—enactment of any treaties requires approval by two-thirds of the Senate. Still, the power to negotiate and execute the terms of treaties affords the president immense authority in the field of foreign affairs. John F. Kennedy used this power to negotiate an end to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962;12 Jimmy Carter personally presided over the negotiation of the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977–1978, which relinquished U.S. control over the canal by the year 2000. Every president during the latter stages of the Cold War conducted arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union, working The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME 2011 Pete Souza - White House/CNP/Newscom Popperfoto/Getty Images 1905 C In 1962, the 45-year-old President John F. Kennedy faced a foreign policy crisis that placed the world on the brink of nuclear war. On October 14, 1962, U-2 reconnaissance flights produced evidence of a mediumrange nuclear weapons buildup in Cuba—the Soviet Union had been supplying materials for the weapons, which would have the range to strike most of the continental United States. For 13 days President Kennedy and his national security team wrestled with options, including the possibility of an all-out military bombing assault on Cuba. Instead, he eventually settled on (1) a blockade of all incoming Russian ships and (2) active diplomacy using backchannels to achieve the Russian withdrawal of weapons from Cuba. Kennedy’s strategy proved successful, and nuclear war was averted. Years later historians would learn just how close the United States came to trading nuclear blows with the Soviet Union. In 2011, the 49-year-old President Barack Obama had his own opportunity to make a name for his administration in foreign policy and the war on terrorism. U.S. intelligence sources identified the man they believed to be Osama Bin Laden—mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks—at a domestic compound in Pakistan. President Obama eventually chose to send in Navy Seals hief executives who campaign for office by promising domestic reforms often find themselves occupied by military or foreign policy crises. The dangers of foreign policy crises are obvious: these events may be difficult to control, and if they go bad, a president’s entire domestic agenda may be overshadowed or ignored. On the other hand, foreign policy crises offer young presidents in particular the opportunity to establish their presence as a strong foreign policy commander and chief diplomat around the world. In 1905, the 46-year-old President Theodore Roosevelt, fresh off his first national election victory (he succeeded to the presidency in 1901 upon the death of William McKinley), looked abroad for opportunities to make history. Roosevelt found what he was looking for in the summer of 1905, when he persuaded officials from Russia and Japan—countries locked in a Russo-Japanese War being waged on the other side of the world—to meet him at a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The imperial ambitions of those nations had led to the war; but Roosevelt’s persistent and effective mediation led to the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth on September 5, 1905. For his efforts, Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the first U.S. president to receive such an honor. 1962 Foreign Policy Successes That Boosted Young Presidents Left: President John F. Kennedy, meeting with his national security team during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Right: President Barack Obama, meeting with Vice President Biden and his national security team in the Situation Room of the White House on March 3, 2011. (Continued ) Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 189 THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME Foreign Policy Successes That Boosted Young Presidents (continued ) by air to capture or kill Bin Laden early in the morning of May 1, 2011. The decision did not come free of significant risks; Obama ultimately chose the operation against the advice of Secretary of Defense Bob Gates as well as Vice President Joseph Biden. But President Obama’s decision proved successful, as the U.S. military identified and killed Bin Laden during the operation he had personally approved. For Critical Thinking and Discussion 1. Why do presidents so often rely on foreign policy successes to provide a popular boost to their administrations? 2. Does the president’s general dominance over the field of foreign policy render him nearly unaccountable in that arena? What are the dangers of the president enjoying such exclusive control over foreign policy? to check the spread of nuclear weapons to other nations. Bill Clinton surprised many in his own party when he completed negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement, an economic treaty with Canada and Mexico that was favored primarily by Republican presidents who came before him. Chief Legislator State of the Union address: An annual speech that the president delivers to Congress laying out the status of the nation and offering suggestions for new legislation. 190 Chapter 7 Although Congress is the branch of government authorized to make laws, modern presidents are involved in nearly every stage of federal lawmaking.13 The Constitution’s express provision that the president recommend for the consideration of Congress “such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient” barely hints at the president’s real role in this context: major legislation is often the product of a give-and-take process between the president and congressional leaders. Indeed, the president plays a critically important role in helping to set the lawmaking agenda for Congress, especially when the president’s party is also in control of the legislative branch of government. While campaigning for the White House, the future president will lay out a policy agenda; once elected, he will claim a legislative mandate to follow through on those campaign proposals. In the State of the Union address, an annual speech made to Congress laying out the status of the nation, the president typically proposes suggestions for legislation. The legislative programs of FDR’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society were both influenced heavily by the executive branch. Similarly, Congress’s reorganization of various executive branch agencies into a unified Department of Homeland Security in 2002 was based on a plan drafted by officials within the Bush administration. According to social scientist Paul Light, recent presidents have tended to offer fewer legislative proposals than presidents of the mid-twentieth century, consistent with the modern administrations’ increased emphasis on reducing the size of the federal government.14 Still, when a national crisis demands legislative solutions, Congress often looks to the president for leadership. House and Senate leaders made few significant modifications to their respective health care bills in 2009 without first huddling with President Obama and his top White House aides; and it was the The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. president’s willingness to meet frequently with moderate Democratic members of Congress that kept many in the fold for the final passage of health care reform in 2010. The White House Office of Legislative Affairs serves as a liaison between the president and Congress and helps develop the strategy used to promote passage of the president’s legislative agenda. Administration officials often testify before congressional subcommittees on behalf of legislation, and presidents meet with congressional leaders frequently throughout the lawmaking process to negotiate details and discuss strategy. Many bills have the president’s imprint squarely upon them, even though the power of lawmaking rests formally with Congress. The president’s legislative authority also includes the constitutional power to veto, or reject, legislation that he opposes. Although Congress can technically override a veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses, barely 4 percent of presidential vetoes have been overridden in history. During the twentieth century, vetoes became a routine form of political exercise for presidents, especially those confronting Congresses controlled by the opposite political party (see Table 7.2). That power includes so-called “pocket vetoes,” by which presidents may refuse to sign a bill within 10 days of the adjournment of Congress, thus rendering it void. For Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and George H. W. Bush, the only three presidents during this span who were never the beneficiaries of unified party rule, the veto became something of an art form. Table 7.2 White House Office of Legislative Affairs: A presidential office that serves as a liaison between the president and Congress. This office helps the president develop the strategy used to promote passage of the president’s legislative agenda. COMPARE WITH YOUR PEERS for American Government Access the Presidency Forum: Polling Activity—Presidential Veto Power Vetoes Issued by Modern Presidents (Through May 1, 2014) Congresses Regular Vetoes Pocket Vetoes Total Vetoes Vetoes Overridden Theodore Roosevelt 57th–60th 42 40 82 1 William Taft 61st–62nd 30 9 39 1 Woodrow Wilson 63rd–66th 33 11 44 6 Warren Harding 67th 5 1 6 0 Calvin Coolidge 68th–70th 20 30 50 4 Herbert Hoover 71st–72nd 21 16 37 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt 73rd–79th 372 263 635 9 Harry Truman 79th–82nd 180 70 250 12 Dwight Eisenhower 83rd–86th 73 108 181 2 John F. Kennedy 87th–88th 12 9 21 0 Lyndon B. Johnson 88th–90th 16 14 30 0 Richard M. Nixon 91st–93rd 26 17 43 7 Gerald Ford 93rd–94th 48 18 66 12 Jimmy Carter 95th–96th 13 18 31 2 Ronald Reagan 97th–100th 39 39 78 9 George H. W. Bush 101st–102nd 29 15 44 1 William Clinton 103rd–106th 37 1 38 2 George W. Bush 107th–110th 11 1 12 4 Barack Obama 111th–113th 2 0 2 0 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. U.S. Senate Reference Webpage on Vetoes, http://www.senate.gov/reference/Legislation/Vetoes/vetoCounts.htm. President 191 Nixon and Bush vetoed 43 and 44 bills, respectively. (Only eight of those vetoes were overridden.) Gerald Ford vetoed 66 bills in just two and a half years, but more than one in five were overridden, a clear sign of the limited power Ford held during his brief term as president. With Republicans controlling the House during George W. Bush’s first six years in office, he did not need to veto any bill until July 19, 2006, when he vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Bill, legislation that would have eased restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. However, after the Democrats’ takeover of Congress in 2007, Bush vetoed 11 more bills sent to him by the Democratic Congress. During President Obama’s first five years in office he vetoed two bills: (1) a continuing appropriations bill, and (2) legislation that would have made it easier for banks to foreclose on homes by allowing foreclosure documents to be accepted among multiple states. In recent times presidents have resorted to other means to undermine laws that stop short of an actual veto. For example, the president’s distaste for a law may be so strong that even while signing the bill into law (perhaps for political reasons), the president will still express his intent to thereafter ignore the law in the form of a “signing statement.” The past three decades have seen a notable surge in such signing statements (see Figure 7.1). President George W. Bush in particular heavily relied on such signing statements (over 800 times during his eight years in office); thus for example, in signing the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibited cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody, Bush warned that the executive branch would construe the act in a manner consistent with his own views on a president’s constitutional authority. To mark a shift in this practice, on March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama announced that he only planned to use signing statements when given legislation by Congress that contained unconstitutional provisions. Straying a bit from that self-imposed limit, President Obama still issued 25 signing statements during his first five years in office. Commander-in-Chief 160 Average annual number of provisions challenged in signing statements by U.S. presidents 146 140 120 100 80 58 60 40 20 0 0.5 8.9 17.5 George Ronald George Bill Clinton George W. Washington Reagan H.W. Bush (1993–2001) Bush through (1981–1989) (1989–1993) (2001–2009) Jimmy Carter President (1789–1981) 6.3 Barack Obama (2009–2011) The Center for Media and Democracy’s “PR Watch” (http://www.prwatch.org/node/5156); The American Presidency Project (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/signingstatements.php#axzz1uoWd02o6) Number of provisions challenged One of the defining features of the American political system is its commitment to civil control of the military, embodied in the president’s status as head of the nation’s armed forces. As commander-in-chief, the president is the nation’s principal military leader, responsible for FIGURE 7.1 Signing Statements Past and Present 192 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. formulating and directing all military strategy and policy. Although the Constitution awards to Congress the formal power to “declare war,” the balance of war-making power has shifted overwhelmingly from Congress to the president during the past century, as modern executives have assumed the nearly unlimited power to send troops into combat.15 Terming it a “police action,” President Harry Truman sent troops to Korea in June 1950 without even asking Congress for a formal declaration of war. In 1973, over President Nixon’s veto, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which theoretically limits the power of the president to unilaterally commit troops to battle. Ignoring its provisions, Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton have deployed U.S. troops to invade Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), and Haiti (1994), respectively. Similarly, in February 2009 President Obama announced his plans to bolster the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by committing over 17,000 new troops to the region. No presidents are entirely immune from public pressures in this context. After initially threatening to use military action in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons against some of its own citizens in 2013, President Obama eventually backtracked from that position in the face of a conflict-weary American public. 7.4 Implied Powers and Responsibilities of the President Article II of the Constitution does not specifically spell out all the powers that a president may exercise; during the past two centuries presidents have assumed the right to exercise some “implied” or “inherent” powers not listed in the Constitution, and the Supreme Court has for the most part acceded in their right do so. These implied powers allow the president to act quickly in crisis situations, to serve as leader of his political party, and to issue executive orders and make executive agreements that do not require congressional approval. Crisis Manager More than any other official in government, the president is in a unique position to respond quickly and effectively to unexpected crises. Consequently, Americans look immediately to the president under such circumstances to provide assurances, comfort, and, where appropriate, a plan to address the difficulties. When a natural disaster strikes, the president will often visit the scene, meet with family members, and in many cases provide aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In the days following the September 11 attacks, George W. Bush redefined his presidency as a fight against terrorism—his visits to “Ground Zero,” the site of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and his address to a joint session of Congress created indelible images in the media and won him widespread public support. President Obama continually expressed his personal resolve to tackle the nation’s economic crisis up to and after his inauguration as president in 2009: within weeks he pressed forward with a proactive economic stimulus plan in hopes that it might reassure the public that his administration was not taking a passive approach to the problem. Party Leader Once elected, the president of the United States assumes the position of de facto leader of his own political party. Not surprisingly, presidents are normally well attuned to how their political decisions will reflect on the party as a whole. A popular president is often expected to campaign for the party’s congressional candidates, and if possible, help secure control of Congress for the party. Any assistance the president provides to congressional candidates seeking election may have an important side effect: the president may now have the leverage to demand support from those members of Congress for his own legislative programs. Similarly, the “coattail effect,” by which congressional candidates and state and local officials benefit at the polls from the votes of the president’s supporters, may strengthen the president’s position with party members during the upcoming term. Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 193 Executive Orders and Agreements executive orders: Rules or regulations issued by the chief executive that have the force of law and do not require the consent of Congress. On their own, presidents can issue executive orders, which are rules or regulations issued by the chief executive that have the force of law. Once thought to be an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s lawmaking power, executive orders have now become a routine feature of American government.16 Since the beginning of the twentieth century, presidents have issued more than 13,000 executive orders regulating all manner of topics, including affirmative action, civil service, federal holidays, the classification of government documents, public land designations, and federal disaster relief. President George W. Bush issued more than 150 executive orders during his first term in office alone. On his first full day in office, Obama issued an executive order mandating that the interrogation of terrorism suspects not include torture. More recently on April 8, 2014, Obama signed an executive order making it harder for federal contractors to discriminate against female employees by offering them a lower salary than male employees doing the same job. Presidents may be reluctant to issue executive orders on especially controversial topics that may elicit a negative response from Congress, as any executive order can be partially or fully revoked by an act of Congress. FDR strategically issued executive orders to create agencies that Congress refused to establish; eventually, however, he was frustrated by the legislature’s refusal to fund those agencies near the end of his presidency. Similarly, Richard Nixon’s efforts to dismantle by executive order certain agencies created by his Democratic predecessors, such as the Office of Economic Opportunity, were often stymied, because the courts refused to allow the elimination of an agency established with the approval of Congress. executive agreement: A pact reached between the president and a foreign government that does not require the consent of Congress. An executive agreement is a pact, written or oral, reached between the president and a foreign government. As with executive orders, these agreements do not require the consent of Congress, although Congress does have the power to revoke them. Executive agreements have become important tools by which presidents conduct foreign affairs. FDR agreed to trade U.S. destroyers for British military bases in 1940, more than a year before the United States formally declared war on Germany, thus implicitly supporting the British military cause against Germany. In recent years, the U.S. government’s military alliances with Great Britain and other countries in response to Iraqi aggression have not been spelled out in any treaties that required the advice and consent of the Senate; rather, those alliances came in the form of executive agreements between President Bush and the British government. 7.5 Presidential Resources More than half a century ago, Professor Richard Neustadt in his landmark book Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership (1960) defined the central problem that all presidents face from the moment they are sworn into office: how do presidents mobilize the powers of the office to work for them? The federal bureaucracy has grown so vast that presidents cannot simply “command” the bureaucracy to do their will. So what exactly can presidents do to make their will felt within the executive branch, and to carry out their choices through that “maze of personalities and institutions called the government of the United States”? Neustadt argued that the president’s most fundamental power is the “power to persuade.”17 Presidents use this power most effectively by keeping themselves informed, employing a system of information that allows them to be at the center of the decision-making apparatus, and carefully cultivating the image of a powerful president. Modern presidents have tended to emphasize certain individuals and offices under their control that play critical roles in the success of their administrations. The Vice President After Vice President Martin Van Buren’s successful election to the White House in 1836, few vice presidents rose to the presidency by running and winning on their own accord. In fact, after Van Buren, no sitting vice president even emerged as a serious contender for the presidency 194 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Next in line for succession and thus “only a heartbeat away” from the presidency, vice presidents have often been relegated to the very fringes of presidential power.18 FDR barely communicated with John Nance Garner, who was vice president during FDR’s first two terms in office. Of course, Garner did not have a very high opinion of the vice presidency either, referring to the position (in a sanitized version of his remarks) as not worth “a bucket of warm spit.” When asked toward the end of his presidency what ideas Vice President Richard Nixon had offered Vice President Joe Biden shakes hands with an Amtrak officer. Biden was a patron within his own administration, Presiand supporter of Amtrak; when he was still a U.S. senator he commuted 250 miles dent Dwight D. Eisenhower quipped: a day by train from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, when the Senate was in “If you give me a week, I might think session. of one.” In fact, up through the 1950s, vice presidents maintained their principal offices on Capitol Hill near the Senate Chamber, where they occasionally performed their one clearly defined constitutional responsibility: to preside over the Senate and to cast a vote in the event of a tie. The vice presidency, however, has undergone a transformation in recent decades. Modern-day vice presidents have assumed roles as key advisers and executive branch officials working on behalf of the president. Walter Mondale developed U.S. policy on South Africa and was one of President Jimmy Carter’s most trusted advisers. Al Gore headed the National Performance Review for the Clinton administration, leading to reforms to increase the federal government’s efficiency and reduce its costs. Perhaps no federal official was more influential with President George W. Bush than Vice President Dick Cheney, the driving force behind Bush’s controversial decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.19 The current vice president, Joe Biden, has become famous for his salty language and verbal gaffes; notably, Biden’s declaration on one news show that he was absolutely “comfortable” with granting same-sex couples full marital rights may have been the final factor that forced President Obama to declare his own support for same-sex marriage a few days later. Biden is also credited with helping to press the administration’s legislative agenda forward by personally lobbying his former Senate colleagues for votes. Constitutionally, the vice president is first in line to succeed the president in the event of death or incapacitation. By statute, if the vice president is not available to serve, succession falls in turn to the Speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and then to cabinet-level officials. The Cabinet The Constitution specifically affords presidents the power to solicit the advice of the principal officers in each of the executive departments. Thus in addition to running their own executive departments within the large federal bureaucracy, principal officers also serve as key advisers. Together, they form the president’s cabinet. Today’s cabinet consists of 15 heads of departments and 6 other important officials considered of “cabinet rank.” In reality, such a large body of individuals with different areas of expertise can serve only limited functions for a president, and recent chief executives have convened their full cabinets to serve more as a Chapter 7 cabinet: The collection of the principal officers in each of the executive departments of the federal government who serve as key advisers to the president. The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 195 Joe Raedle/Getty Images until the Republicans nominated Richard Nixon, who lost to John Kennedy in 1960. And the next sitting vice president after Van Buren to be elected president was George H. W. Bush in 1988. sounding board and a communications device than as a significant instrument of policymaking. Nevertheless, in individual meetings cabinet-level officials may still provide critical input to the president on issues related to their own departments. The Executive Office of the President and the White House Staff Created in 1939 to bring executive branch activities under tighter control, the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and its two thousand federal employees consists of numerous agencies that assist with the management and administration of executive branch departments. Some of these agencies, such as the Office of Management and Budget, the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, the National Security Council, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representatives, have near-permanent status. Other EOP agencies come and go, depending on the policy priorities of the current administration. Thus during the height of the Cold War, the EOP included agencies that focused on preparedness and civil defense in the event of a nuclear attack. White House chief of staff: The manager of the White House staff, which serves the president’s organizational needs, including speechwriting, advance work for presidential appearances, scheduling, congressional relations, public relations, and communications. The EOP also includes an expanded White House staff. Until 1939, this staff consisted mostly of assistant secretaries and clerks who helped the president with correspondence; the White House staff today consists of nearly six hundred employees and runs on an annual budget of almost $730 million. In charge of this bureaucracy is the White House chief of staff, who manages and organizes the staff to serve the president. Some modern presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, have adopted management styles that rely heavily on the chief of staff to control access to the president. Others, such as President Clinton, have utilized a “spokes-of-a-wheel” arrangement in which five or six different advisers have direct access to the president.20 Regardless of the arrangement chosen, the White House chief of staff will have a significant hand in the success of the modern presidency. The principal duties of the White House staff include, but are not limited to, speechwriting, advance work for presidential appearances, scheduling, congressional relations, public relations, and communications. The First Lady All but one president (James Buchanan) have been married at some point in their lifetimes, and the spouses of sitting presidents, now referred to as first ladies, have come to assume an important role in the affairs of the nation. Until recently, presidents mainly relied on their spouses to help them perform social obligations, such as hosting state dinners. Woodrow Wilson’s two wives broke somewhat with this mold: his first wife, Ellen, took public positions on bills being considered for Congress, and his second wife, Edith, served as an intermediary between the president and other government leaders while Wilson was recovering from a massive stroke in the fall of 1919. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, charted a course for first ladies as aggressive public advocates. Mrs. Roosevelt launched one of the earliest civil rights organizations, the Southern Conference on Human Welfare; she actively supported the building of model communities; and she lobbied for refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Occasionally, Mrs. Roosevelt even disagreed publicly with some of FDR’s policies in foreign affairs. Although no first lady after Eleanor Roosevelt was willing to so boldly challenge her husband’s policies in the media, many did stake out policy areas where they could contribute, and some became active members of their husbands’ administrations.21 They have been assisted in this regard by a formal Office of the First Lady, now staffed by more than 20 aides. Rosalynn Carter lobbied Congress for mental health initiatives; Nancy Reagan became the public voice of the “Just Say No” to drugs campaign; and Barbara Bush (wife of George H. W. Bush) campaigned widely against the problem of illiteracy. A distinguished lawyer, Hillary Rodham Clinton led a task force in 1994 charged with reforming the nation’s health care system; Mrs. Clinton’s complex plan ultimately proved too ambitious, and it was rebuffed by Congress. In another series of unprecedented moves, Hillary Clinton ran for and won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2000 and 196 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Although no woman has ever been nominated as a major party’s candidate for the presidency, the day when that happens may be rapidly approaching. In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro, a member of Congress from New York, was the Democratic Party’s candidate for vice president, a historic breakthrough to be sure. More recently, in 2008 the Republicans nominated Alaska governor Sarah Palin as the party’s vice presidential candidate. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) fell just short of capturing the Democratic presidential nomination, although she had been the early frontrunner for the nomination from the time she first threw her hat into the race in early 2007. When a woman not only captures her party’s nomination but goes on to win the presidency, a question will be raised for the new chief executive in the event she is married: what role, if any, should be played by her spouse, who will be the first “first gentleman” in American history? Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images was reelected to the Senate in 2006; she was the front-running Democratic candidate for president both in 2008 and in 2016, and became Secretary of State in 2009. Although an accomplished lawyer herself, Michelle Obama returned the Office of the First Lady to its more common role as lobbyist for a cause, expounding on the dangers of childhood obesity. Regardless of what roles first ladies may assume, modern presidents have increasingly come to rely on their spouses as advisers on a range of issues. First Lady Michelle Obama speaking at an event related to her “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity. 7.6 Important Presidential Relationships The power of the president is influenced by the relations that a president develops and cultivates with three important constituencies: the public, Congress, and the news media. The President and the Public CONNECT WITH YOUR CLASSMATES for American Government Access the Presidency Forum: Discussion—Electing a Female President Catering to the needs and demands of the public mattered little to presidents prior to 1824, when presidential nominees were chosen by congressional leaders in secret caucuses. By contrast, the presidency today is a truly public institution that depends heavily on its public popularity for political effectiveness. Modern presidential nominations and elections are won on an arduous campaign trail in which aspiring chief executives must reach out, communicate with, and ultimately gain acceptance from large segments of the public. Once in office, presidents must remain constantly attentive to the sentiments of the public at large. FDR was the first president to rely on public opinion polls, and his administration utilized them to monitor support for his New Deal policies. Through his fireside chats, he reached into the living rooms of millions of Americans, winning their support for and confidence in his domestic and foreign policies. Most modern presidents continuously engage the public to support administration policies, whether through the annual State of the Union address to Congress and other special televised messages, staged events, or interviews and press conferences with the media where they attempt to promote the benefits of their programs. Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan preferred the “set piece” speech presented from the Oval Office during prime time; Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton occasionally held “town meetings” to discuss issues in open forums with concerned citizens. In bypassing legislators and appealing directly to their constituents, modern presidents have perfected the art of what social scientist Samuel Kernell calls “going public.”22 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 197 Some recent presidents have come under criticism for being too dependent on public opinion polls. President Clinton’s critics charged that he too quickly withdrew support for some of his more controversial appointments when public opinion swung against them. Notably, President Obama’s decision in May 2012 to declare his own personal support for same-sex marriage coincided with recent polls showing a bare majority’s support for that right for the first time in American history. On the other hand, presidents may find themselves in even greater political trouble when they refuse to heed public opinion. President Johnson’s escalation of troops in Vietnam during the late 1960s ignored growing public opposition against that war and undermined his hopes for reelection. Just as the Watergate scandal began to engulf Richard Nixon’s presidency, his decision to hold press conferences less frequently only fed the impression that he was hiding from the public and fueled even more calls for his resignation. Whereas high levels of public support increase a president’s chances to get legislation passed, precipitous drops in public support may stop a president’s program in its tracks. The President and Congress The history of the American political system is marked by the ebb and flow of power between the president and Congress. For much of the nineteenth century, a form of “congressional government” prevailed, with most presidents acting as dutiful administrators of the laws passed by Congress. Buoyed by advances in communications technology that placed modern presidents at the center of American politics, presidents today play far more influential roles in the legislative process, at times even prodding Congress forward to meet their administrations’ goals. Since the 1970s, the frequency of divided-party government, with the executive and the legislature controlled by opposing political parties, has placed the two branches in a near continuous battle over the nation’s domestic policy agenda. Because credit for a program’s success is rarely spread evenly among the two branches, tensions are inevitable and compromises often difficult to come by. President Reagan managed to get the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives to pass his program of tax decreases and spending cuts in 1981; when the economy rebounded a few years later, Reagan and the Republican Party benefited politically far more than did the Democrats. President Clinton’s willingness to sign a welfare reform bill in 1996 aided him in that year’s election, when he claimed to have lived up to his earlier promise to “end welfare as we know it.” The Republican Congress that actually drafted and passed the welfare bill received far less credit for its accomplishments. In foreign policy, presidents continue to act nearly independent of Congress. Presidents have many tools at their disposal to influence Congress. As party leader, the president can campaign for congressional candidates, and then leverage that assistance into support. Personal contacts by the president with members of Congress can be effective as well. The White House Office of Congressional Relations (OCR) serves as a liaison to Congress, rounding up support and monitoring events on Capitol Hill. Still, the most effective lobbying for a president’s policies comes from members of Congress friendly to the administration, who persuade other members of Congress to vote in favor of the policies. The rewards for such service often come in the form of future appointments, pork-barrel projects for home districts or states, or financial support from the political party for future election bids. FDR rewarded Hugo Black, a key Senate supporter of the president’s controversial 1937 plan to increase the size of the Supreme Court, with an appointment to the Court; Bill Clinton was prepared to reward Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell with the same prize in 1994, but held back because he needed Mitchell’s support in Congress for a pending health care bill. (Despite Mitchell’s efforts, Clinton’s health care bill went down to defeat.)23 The President and the Media The relationship between presidents and the media that cover their administrations is important. The media provide perhaps the most effective channel through which presidents can communicate information about their policies to the public. At the same time, the media’s desire for interesting headlines to attract greater numbers of readers, listeners, viewers, and 198 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. THROUGH THE YEARS: SUPREME COURT DECISIONS IMPACTING OUR LIVES Clinton v. Jones (1997) Political scandals tend to perpetuate the perception that politicians are somehow “above the law” and not subject to the same rules that ordinary citizens must live by. The Monica Lewinsky scandal, which embroiled the Clinton administration in controversy for nearly two years, had that effect; beginning in February of 1998, President Clinton expended considerable resources covering up a sexual relationship he had with a much younger White House intern. Unfortunately for Clinton, he could not escape other allegations of improper sexual advances dating back to when he was the governor of Arkansas. In one notable case, Paula Corbin Jones sued President Clinton, alleging that while she was an Arkansas state employee, she suffered several “abhorrent” sexual advances from the then-Arkansas governor. No one questions the right of an individual to bring suit when he or she perceives a violation of legal rights. But could she sue President Clinton while he was still running the country? Bill Clinton’s lawyers argued that the doctrine of separation of powers prevented him from being subject to judicial power as president, which would have forced Jones to wait until he left office to sue. By a resounding 9–0 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the president’s argument for special treatment, holding that the doctrine of separation of powers does not mandate that federal courts delay private civil lawsuits against the president. Ordinary Americans should therefore take note: no one—not even the president— stands above the law in the eyes of the judiciary. In fact, Clinton ended up settling the lawsuit for $850,000, and lost his license to practice law for five years as well. For Critical Thinking and Discussion 1. Under what circumstances would a private civil lawsuit against the president actually interfere with his constitutionally prescribed duties? What if the nation is at war? What if the stock market crashed and the economy fell into a depression? 2. Should the Supreme Court be allowed to determine which problems justify a president’s refusal to participate in the judicial process? online observers leaves them to rely heavily on the executive branch for information. Effective media management has been a hallmark of the most successful modern presidents. Much of the responsibility rests with the White House press secretary, who plays an especially important role in briefing the press, organizing news conferences, and briefing the president on questions he may be forced to address. The administration that ignores media management does so at its own peril. Social scientists Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman revealed how the mainstream media today does not so much report the news about presidents as create it, transforming “the raw stuff of experience into presumed fact” and “arranging facts into coherent stories” that can prove crucial to presidential success.24 President Obama enjoyed considerable positive media coverage during his initial months in office; by contrast, after Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic mission at Bhengazi in Libya in September of 2012, CBS and other media outlets noted possible contradictions in the Obama administration’s description of the attack (i.e., was it terrorism or a spontaneous protest?), driving negative media coverage in the months that followed. White House press secretary: The person on the White House staff who plays an especially important role in briefing the press, organizing news conferences, and even briefing the president on questions that may be asked. Today the president relies heavily on the White House director of communications to articulate a consistent and effective message to the public.25 But even before that office came into Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 199 National Archives/Getty Images President John Kennedy in June 1963, taking questions at one of his many press conferences. being, chief executives felt the need to craft a message and hone their public images. Although known best for his fireside chats and effective public speeches, Franklin Roosevelt worked hard to cultivate good relations with the media, allowing his administration to set the news agenda and influence the content of the news. Many of his press conferences included off-therecord commentary that fed the media’s appetite for information, yet allowed the president to change his position as circumstances changed. John F. Kennedy perfected the modern press conference in the East Room of the White House; his colorful banter with reporters played well as sound bites on the evening television news. Ronald Reagan’s reputation as the “great communicator” was enhanced by positive media coverage. His administration perfected the use of “staged” or “pseudo” events, which presented the president in a positive light—perhaps visiting flag factories or reading Shakespeare to children at elementary schools—all packaged in time for the evening newscasts. Even when scandals rocked Reagan’s second term in office, his mostly friendly relations with the press paid off when they painted him as the unwitting victim of his own administration’s follies. Borrowing from Reagan’s playbook, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have avoided live press conferences wherever possible, preferring controlled situations that could be molded to fit their respective messages. The Bush administration attempted to cultivate the image of a president working hard for the American people—even while vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, the president was often pictured clearing brush and performing various chores, rather than simply relaxing. President Obama in particular relished hitting the road to drum up support for his policies at large pep rallies. Thus his aides urged him to travel widely while key legislation was being debated to capitalize on those particular strengths. Although presidents and their staff members take great care to present a positive public image through the media, the glare of the spotlight can sometimes catch off-the-cuff commentary or statements from chief executives that would have best been left unsaid. Some of the more notable gaffes spoken by recent presidents include these remarks: r
“I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” —President Ronald Reagan 200 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE Another “Tweet” from the Commander-in-Chief: The Interactive Presidency of Barack Obama T witter, an online social networking service, allows every college student to follow friends, experts, celebrities, and breaking news in posts of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets.” Enter the president of the United States into this modern world of communication by tweeting. The George W. Bush administration’s White House Web site featured extensive videos and links to speeches and addresses by the 43rd president. By contrast, the Obama administration and its brand-new, state-of-the-art Web site at www.whitehouse.gov offers visitors the chance to stay connected to presidential events by Facebook, Flickr, and, of course, Twitter. As of May 1, 2014, the president’s daily (and sometimes hourly) “tweets” were followed by more than 42 million people around the world. In fact, that same day twitaholic.com’s statistical algorithm ranked President Obama as the third most popular Twitter user in the United States, trailing only behind entertainers Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom For Critical Thinking and Discussion On July 6, 2011, President Obama responded live to “tweets” on health care, the economy, and other issues at the White House’s first ever “Twitter Townhall.” 1. What advantages does a modern president have in his ability to communicate with a younger generation of citizens through Twitter? 2. Do you think the political views of a Twitter user affect his or her willingness to visit the White House Web site? Why or why not? r
“At breakfast, she was complaining that it is impossible to get a decent bagel in Washington.” —President Bill Clinton, on wife Hillary’s run for a U.S. Senate seat from New York r
“We see nothing but increasingly brighter clouds every month,” referring to an improving economy. —President Gerald Ford, speaking to a group of businesspeople r
“I don’t see what’s wrong with giving Bobby a little experience [as attorney general] before he starts to practice law.” —President John Kennedy, reacting to critics who argued that his brother Robert was too young to be attorney general r
“When I need a little free advice about Saddam Hussein, I turn to country music.” —President George H. W. Bush, at a country music awards ceremony r
“I would have made a good pope.” —President Richard Nixon26 Chapter 7 The Presidency Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 201 ****** When unexpected crises confront the nation—military, economic, or otherwise— leadership must come from the president of the United States. Yet presidential power ebbs and flows throughout an administration—two-term presidents in particular may find themselves far less able to impact domestic policymaking after they are inaugurated the second time. Both Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama emphasized foreign policy in their respective second terms as congressional opposition stiffened and the political system began to focus on the search for their successors. Presidents know that the short-lived honeymoon that occurs during the first term rarely repeats itself. As a consequence, they must become more agile and innovative in the way they employ the tools of executive power. Of course the Constitution does not spell out all of the roles and responsibilities that have become central to the modern presidency. The office has evolved over the course of the nation’s history, and much of that evolution has occurred in response to crisis situations, economic or otherwise. Unlike the Congress, the president is just one person and so can act quickly and decisively. Additionally, the president and the vice president are the only two officials elected by the entire nation—thus, the president alone can claim a mandate to act on behalf of the American people as a whole, rather than on behalf of a state, a district, or one political party. In times of crisis, citizens look to presidents for strength because they alone are in a position to provide it. For that reason more than any other, presidents only rarely have to demonstrate their continued relevance in the modern political system. SUMMARY: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 7.1 Where do Presidents Come From? Presidential Comings and Goings
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Although theoretically any American who is at least 35 years old, a “natural-born” citizen, and has lived in the United States for 14 years is eligible to be president, the 43 individuals who have held the office have been mostly older, welleducated, Caucasian Protestant men who have had prior political experience.
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Although the House of Representatives can impeach the president for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the Senate alone has the power to actually remove the impeached president by a tw...
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