Congress President I II III Finish How a Bill Becomes a Law Presidential Power Constitutional Authority a Head of State b Head of Government I II Bill is at the President President can do 4 things with our bill He has 10 days to decide 1 If he signs it and it becomes a law within the 10 days Becomes a law 2 If he decides to veto it he won t sign it He can write a memo about why he is vetoing it Memo goes back with the bill to the originating house No law unless override vetoes 3 If he doesn t send it back within the 10 days congress is in session and the bill will become a law Waits and becomes a law 4 10 days go by President doesn t sign it but Congress has adjourned and is not in session That is called a pocket veto Waits and congress adjourns pocket veto If it is vetoed and you don t have the votes to override it you can start over and try again You can look at the reasons as to why it was vetoed try to compromise and then hope that the President will sign that version Presidential power most powerful in our system a myth Myth that he pulls all of the strings and decides everything In the president s interest to look powerful and pulling all of the strings Presidents always are evoking other presidents to compare themselves Our system means that the President is separate a separate institution from Congress They are institutionally distinct The President and Congress have different constituencies The President s constituency they represent the American people We the people need to realize that the Founders created congress to be the most powerful branch split it up because it was so powerful Congress doesn t have to do anything that the President says We don t have the link that you see in a Parliamentary system Power to command Congress is not automatic President executive branch where he is powerful but he is only able to make nominations at the top of the bureaucracy Civil servants progressive reforms they get their jobs based on merit pass civil servant exams do NOT get their jobs based on partisanship President can t fire you based on partisanship Presidents have tried to push out some civil servants that did not have their same goals in mind but they have failed Lower level is not partisanship The jobs that the President does appoint defense who is secretary can hire and can fire What tends to happen with the high ranking jobs tough for president to just fire someone You have to worry about the politics about firing someone Clinton Reno was attorney general and at different times he was hoping she would come out more on his side More loyalty from her Instead Reno was strict about the legality of things She was respected by her decisions of legal things but Clinton wanted her to be more in his favor He could have fired her but the PR and everyone would have known that she stood on her principles and not the way he wanted her to The politics of it was no because he was not in the position to President is constrained by congress laws civil servants and the perception PR politics You can t run the country like a CEO or a business because you have to go with Congress President Truman he ll sit here and say do this and nothing will happen Poor Ike it won t be like the arm You can t command congress you can t demand people to do things Truman understood that presidency requires different skills Truman described the job in the following way persuasion Presidents need to be able to persuade Not commanding Building on Truman s idea in 1960 a political scientist Richard Neustadt wrote a book called Presidential Power IN the book he digs in to see what makes a powerful president Why some are weak Tries to figure out some commonalities He argues that the president s primary power is bargaining Presidents who got a lot done they have bargained Knew how to work with Congress so they were persuading Congress to do what the President wants They figure out how to compromise with bargaining Presidential power a lot of resources and tools that Presidents have and use that it is harder to put your finger on Persuading and bargaining is informal Some use their resources and some never understand how it works Resources 1 Formal powers in the Constitution 2 3 4 Informal perception what kind of perception do we have of the President We think of professional reputation Does someone have an outstanding reputation Does the President have authority Does he have legitimacy Some presidents give off perception of power and authority Some don t Informal Political assets President is a political job Some are better because they have political assets and some don t Party campaigning Are they seen as assets to their party Do members of their party running for Senate or the House do they invite the President to campaign with them like he is an asset to the party Presidential coattails his coattails will sweep in Momentum will help his party President can be swept into his party and won fewer seats than he actually had If he is a benefit his party members will support him Informal personal skills Difficult to try to teach someone Clinton s personal skills were amazing He could walk into a room of 100 people he s only going to be there very shortly and everyone feels like they got tons of time with him Are you good at negotiating are you good at bargaining Does congress buy what you are saying Are you good at selling what you want Convince Congress and the American people American people tend to hold their presidents to the legal limit If we are at war we are more willing to give our President extra power Tend to let the President go farther and butt heads with Congress But we accept that because it is war time If we are at peace time we hold the Presidents pretty strictly to the legal line Presidents sometimes want to be as Presidents have been during war time but it is peace time They miscalculate what the people want during peace time 1 Formal powers of the president divided by the hat the President wears He has 2 jobs he is both head of state and also head of government Head of state symbolic role figure of the U S When he is representing us Can have an international component to it For U K it is the monarch because she is the symbol of the U K queen Head of government day to day running of the government More of a domestic role for U K it is the prime minister He runs the government day to day III Resource Powers His formal powers are Head of State powers 1 Military power the constitution tells us that
View Full Document
Unlocking...