The President and Choices Not to Enforce

'Faithful Execution' and Article II

Professor Seidman has thoughtfully and comprehensively surveyed the moral, political, and legal implications of an executive branch officer's resignation in response to a presidential directive with which an executive-branch officer disagrees. Moreover, his taxonomy of eight options – starting with the weakest response of remaining in office and simply acceding to the policy, through intermediate options and concluding with the strongest possible response of noisily and publicly resigning – represents an almost complete menu of options open to an executive-branch officer who disagrees with her boss, the President, about a policy matter. Professor Seidman's taxonomy, however, does not include an additional, ninth option: remaining in office, but refusing to implement the President's policy.

Presidential War Powers, the Take Care Clause, and Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter

This comprehensive two-volume guide is the definitive source for researchers seeking an understanding of those who have occupied the White House and on the institution of the U.S. presidency. Readers turn Guide to the Presidency for its wealth of facts and analytical chapters that explain the structure, powers, and operations of the office and the president's relationship with Congress and the Supreme Court. The fifth edition of this acclaimed reference completes coverage of the George W. Bush presidency, the 2008 election, and the first 3 years of the presidency of Barack Obama. This includes coverage of their handling of the economic crisis, wars abroad, and Obama's healthcare initiatives. The work is divided into eight distinct subject areas covering every aspect of the U.S. presidency, and all chapters in each subject area have been revised and updated: Origins and Development of the Presidency, including constitutional beginnings, history of the presidency and vice presidency, and presidential ratings Selection and Removal of the President, including the electoral process, a chronology of presidential elections, removal of the president and vice president, and succession Powers of the Presidency, including the unilateral powers of the presidency and those as chief of state, chief administrator, legislative leader, commander in chief, and chief economist The President, the Public, and the Parties, including presidential appearances, the president and political parties, the president and the news media, the presidency and pop culture, public support and opinion, and the president and interest groups The Presidency and the Executive Branch, including the White House Office, the Office of the Vice President, supporting organizations, the cabinet and executive departments, presidential commissions, and executive branch housing, pay, and perquisites Chief Executive and Federal Government, including the president and Congress, the president and the Supreme Court, and the president and the bureaucracy Presidents, their Families, and Life in the White House and Beyond, including the daily life of the president, the first lady, the first family, friends of presidents, and life after the presidency Biographies of the Presidents, Vice Presidents, First Ladies This new volume also features more than 200 textboxes, tables, and figures. Major revisions cover the supporting White House organizations and the president's role as chief economist. Additional reference materials include explanatory headnotes, as well as hundreds of photographs with detailed captions.

Removal of Context: Blackstone, Limited Monarchy, and the Limits of Unitary Originalism

Justice Department Independence and White House Control

Presidential scholars increasingly turn to science to address the fundamental issues in the field, but undergraduates are rarely taught the skills to do the same. The American Presidency introduces students to new insights produced by the scientific study of the presidency and the scientific endeavor itself. After chapters on the scientific study of the presidency and background information on the presidency, the text discusses prominent theories of presidential power. Chapters on presidential elections, the president's relationship with other political actors (such as Congress and the Supreme Court), the president's role in foreign and economic policy, and presidential greatness include guided research exercises that provide students with the opportunity to apply the scientific method to empirical questions with significant theoretical content. The American Presidency provides students with the opportunity to learn about the presidency and enables them to draw their own reasoned conclusions about the nature of presidential power.

Presidential scholars increasingly turn to science to address the fundamental issues in the field, but undergraduates are rarely taught the skills to do the same. The American Presidency introduces students to new insights produced by the scientific study of the presidency and the scientific endeavor itself. After chapters on the scientific study of the presidency and background information on the presidency, the text discusses prominent theories of presidential power. Chapters on presidential elections, the president's relationship with other political actors (such as Congress and the Supreme Court), the president's role in foreign and economic policy, and presidential greatness include guided research exercises that provide students with the opportunity to apply the scientific method to empirical questions with significant theoretical content. The American Presidency provides students with the opportunity to learn about the presidency and enables them to draw their own reasoned conclusions about the nature of presidential power.

The Obama Administration, the Dream Act and the Take Care Clause

While the president's relationship to Congress has been carefully studied, the broader executive branch has received far less attention in that context. Scholars rely on assumptions about the relationship between the president and cabinet departments that remain untested. We construct the first statistical portrait of executive branch ideology by estimating ideal points for members of Congress, presidents, and the heads of cabinet‐level departments between 1991 and 2004 in a Bayesian framework. We empirically assess claims about the composition of the president's administrative team and the influence of institutions on the ideology of principal executive decision makers. We also test an important claim regarding the trade‐off between ideological congruence and budgetary authority to demonstrate the utility of our estimates for other scholars. Our analysis reveals a new picture of the executive branch as ideologically diverse, casting into doubt some essential assumptions in a substantial body of work on the separation of powers.

The Departmental Structure of Executive Power: Subordinate Checks from Madison to Mueller

Throughout this text, I presume a basic knowledge of American politics. Political science majors who have taken an introductory course in American government should have this basic knowledge. Most readers will have taken other courses in American government – courses on Congress, interest groups, voting, parties, the Court, public policy – and the information and insight you have gained in these other courses will serve you well as you study the presidency. However, a scientific study of the presidency requires a substantive background rarely taught outside of courses specifically focused on the presidency and the executive branch. I present some of the more detailed background information in the chapters that follow; this chapter includes the most fundamental aspects of that background knowledge – the “nuts and bolts” of the presidency.

The fact that centralized executive oversight of agency policy making is primarily reactive reflects the motives and constraints that define the president's relationship with the domestic bureaucracy. Such a strategy allows for the allocation of limited resources to agency initiatives that are inconsistent with the president's agenda or that evoke conflict within the executive branch or the larger political system. This calls into question the descriptive model of presidential administration as proactive management by a unitary actor, as well as its prescriptive corollary that equates a strong executive with coordination across the bureaucracy. Reactive presidential oversight can produce a kind of ad hoc coordination that can be salutary, but its often pluralistic character can also undermine other important values in the administrative process.

Offices and Officers of the Constitution, Part I: An Introduction

When delegates discussed the structure of the presidency at the Constitutional Convention in June 1787, serious objections to a unitary executive were raised. Edmund Randolph warned, for example, that a one-person presidency would become the “foetus of monarchy.” Controversy over the idea of a single president was predictable. Only recently had the framers freed themselves from the tyranny of King George III, and they were firmly committed to creating a new government that would not abuse its powers and oppress its citizens. It must have seemed preposterous to replace a hereditary monarch with an elected monarch.To be sure, the framers invoked important arguments for a unitary executive. While Congress would deliberate, the president would act with decisiveness and dispatch. A single president would bring order and energy to the national government. With the passage of time, however, it has become clear that the founding fathers misjudged the consequences of their choice:They did not anticipate the extent to which executive power would expand and give us an “imperial presidency” that dominates Congress and that too often exercises its authority in ways that are detrimental to the national interest. They did not predict the role that political parties would come to play and how battles to capture the White House would greatly aggravate partisan conflict. They did not recognize that single presidents would represent party ideology much more than the overall public good. And they misjudged the advantages and disadvantages of single versus multiple decision makers.Had the framers been able to predict the future, they would have been far less enamored with the idea of a unitary executive and far more receptive to the alternative proposals for a plural executive that they rejected. Like their counterparts in Europe, they might well have created an executive branch in which power is shared among multiple persons from multiple political parties.If the presidency is to fulfill the founding fathers’ vision and function more effectively, it needs to be reconceived. This need for constitutional change led me to the proposal for reform that I consider in this book — the replacement of the one-person, one-party presidency with a two-person, two-party presidency.A coalition presidency carries the potential for many important benefits — a balancing of power between the executive and legislative branches, a dampening of partisan conflict in Washington, an executive branch more representative of the entire electorate, real opportunities for third-party candidates to win election, and wiser presidential decision making.After more than two hundred years with the Constitution’s one-person presidency, it may seem preposterous to suggest a plural executive. But a coalition presidency would be far more faithful to the framers’ view of executive power. They wanted a president with limited authority who would serve as a co-equal with Congress. They also believed that power should be contained by dividing it and requiring it to be shared. A two-person presidency relies on the framers’ structural devices to promote their core values. And by correcting the dysfunction in Washington and making the executive branch operate more effectively, a two-person, bipartisan presidency can be justified even without reference to original intent.