POLS 102 1st EditionLecture 21Outline of Last Lecture1. How much should the US spend on Defense? 2. Median Voter3. Majority Party Influence4. Haster RuleOutline of Current Lecture1. Review2. Dearth of Positive Presidential Power over Law Making Processesa. Limited Positive Powerb. Separation of Powerc. Weak Party leaderd. Different Constituents Current LectureReview of what we have talked about so far with Law Making and Majority Party Influence- Majority Party Leverage – control over Committees and the Haster Rule- Members preferences = their ideology and their constituents- Median Voter – should get what they want Dearth of Positive Presidential Power over Law Making Processes - The president isn’t really a function of constitutional power, they have a lot less power over law and policy making than other political position holders do.1. Limited Positive Power from a Constitutional Perspectivea. They inform congress on the state of the unionb. Recommend “expedient” measuresi. Congress can easily say no to these recommendationc. They can negotiate treaties with other countries but 2/3rds of Congress has to ratify the treaties2. Separation of Powersa. Separate elections – between the President and House/Senateb. Divided Government – in the US the majority party in the House can be of a different political party than the President.These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.i. In the United Kingdom the Prime Minister is chosen by the majority party that wins the House of Commons = the majority party has a lot of power in the UK and so does the Prime Minister.c. No Votes, No Confidence …i. Comes from the United Kingdomii. When the Prime Minister proposes a law that is a big part of his platform, if the House of Commons rejects it the Prime Minister loses his position and they have to have a new election for the Prime Minister. d. When comparing the President of the US and the Prime Minister of the UK, the President is very weak in terms of being able to make the legislature do what he wants3. Weak Party Leader – the President rarely influences party nominations a. He can’t determine who is in his party, because they don’t have nomination leverageb. The Prime Minister in the UK has power over nominationsc. See UK/US slide on Ecampus4. Different Constituencies a. The president’s constituency is the entire country i. What might be good for a state/district may not be the best thing for the country as a wholeb. Senator’s constituents are statesc. House constituents are districts within statesd. EXAMPLE: LBJ’s Model Cities Programi. LBJ proposed that the government decides on 5 cities to try and solve their problems by creating programs. They can see which programs work and which ones don’t. For the programs that work, they can promote those nationally. 1. However, there wasn’t much support in Congress unless it came from congressmen and women whose cities it affected. 2. Congress wanted a lot of cities to be Model cities and they wanted a fair distribution of resources and money.ii. LBJ agreed to sprinkle resources and to add more model cities but it made the program much less effective. Therefore, it’s not always fair to blame the president for all problems not getting solved.e. Coattails? What Coattails?i. It used to be that if a Democrat won the presidency, then a lot of democrats across the country would win their elections. The Democrats would hold onto the Presidents coat tails to get into Congress.ii. However, Coat tails no longer exist because Congress election wins aren’t because of the President, therefore Congress members don’t really owe the President anything = it’s hard for the President to act asa leader***These are all reasons why the President has a difficult time being a leader in choosing what laws are passed – however the President does have a lot of power in influencing Congress, which we will see in the following lectures