Presidential Rhetoric and Bureaucratic Enforcement

Abstract

Do presidents exercise leadership through their public rhetoric and bureaucratic appointees? To address this question, we investigate fair housing policy and enforcement during the Clinton administration. President Clinton is often thought of as a civil rights advocate, and we expected to find that he provided leadership against housing discrimination, an important civil rights issue. To test this expectation, we examine two quantitative indicators of presidential leadership in fair housing: Clinton’s presidential statements and the degree of aggressive enforcement by HUD and DOJ under Clinton’s appointees. Our analysis, however, reveals few indications of leadership in Clinton’s public rhetoric and limited evidence of aggressive enforcement of fair housing policy by his appointees at HUD and DOJ. Our conclusions suggest possible explanations for these findings and our likely direction in the next stage of this research.