In This Chapter

Chapter Outline

Presidential Power Is Rooted in the Constitution

1. The president’s expressed powers fall into five categories: military, judicial, diplomatic, executive, and legislative.
2. The position of commander in chief makes the president the highest military authority in the executive branch, with control of the entire military establishment.
3. The presidential power to grant reprieves, pardons, and amnesties allows the president to choose freedom or confinement, and even life or death, for all individuals who have violated, or are suspected of having violated, federal laws, including people who directly threaten the security of the United States.
4. The power to receive representatives of foreign countries allows the president almost unconditional authority to determine whether a new ruling group can indeed commit its country to treaties and other agreements.
5. The president’s role as head of government rests on a constitutional foundation consisting of three principal sources: executive power, domestic military authority, and legislative power.
6. The Constitution delegates to the president, as commander in chief, the obligation to protect every state against invasion and domestic violence.
7. The president’s legislative power consists of the obligation to make recommendations for consideration by Congress and the ability to veto legislation. Congress counts on the president to set the agenda of public policy.
8. The executive order is a rule or regulation issued by the president that has the effect and formal status of legislation. The executive order is a normal tool of management, and also a recognized presidential power.
9. Many of the powers exercised by the president and the executive branch are not found in the Constitution but are the products of congressional statutes and resolutions. Congress must turn to the hundreds of departments and agencies in the executive branch or, when necessary, create new agencies to implement its goals.
10. The vice president exists for two purposes only: to succeed the president in case of death, resignation, or incapacitation; and to preside over the Senate, casting a tie-breaking vote when necessary.
11. The main value of the vice presidency as a political resource for the president is electoral. Recent presidents have given their vice presidents more responsibility.
12. First ladies greet foreign dignitaries, visit other countries, and attend important national ceremonies. First spouses have begun to exert more influence over policy.

Institutional Resources of Presidential Power Are Numerous

1. Presidents have at their disposal a variety of institutional resources—such as the power to fill high-level political positions—that directly affect a president’s ability to govern.
2. Presidents increasingly have preferred the White House staff to the Cabinet as a tool for managing the gigantic executive branch.
3. The White House staff, which is composed primarily of analysts and advisers, has grown from an informal group of fewer than a dozen people to a new presidential bureaucracy.
4. The Executive Office of the President, often called the institutional presidency, is larger than the White House staff and comprises the president’s permanent management agencies.

Party, Popular Mobilization, and Administration Make Presidents Stronger

1. Presidents can expand their power in three ways: party, popular mobilization, and administration.
2. Presidents may construct or strengthen national partisan institutions with which to exert influence in the legislative process and through which to implement their programs.
3. Presidents may use popular appeals to create a mass base of support that will allow them to subordinate their political foes. This tactic is called “going public.”
4. Presidents may seek to bolster their control of established executive agencies or to create new administrative institutions and procedures that will reduce their dependence on Congress and give them a more independent governing and policy-making capability.
5. Presidents often use their electoral victories to increase their power by claiming the election was a mandate for a certain course of action.
6. Although its traditional influence is on the decline, the president’s party is still significant as a means of achieving legislative success.
7. Interest groups and coalitions supportive of the president’s agenda are also a dependable resource for presidential government.
8. Over the past half-century, the American executive branch has harnessed mass popularity successfully as a political resource.