Waiving Goodbye to Congressional Constraints: Presidents and Subnational Policy Making

Abstract

Presidents often find themselves frustrated by the legislative process and in need of an alternative policy‐making route. While most scholarship on the presidency focuses on unilateral action as the preferred alternative, I propose that subnational policy making can be an equally viable option. Specifically, evidence suggests that presidents have used a waiver strategy to pursue their agendas at the subnational level. I develop and test a proposition about the conditions under which presidents use waivers with an original data set of approved Section 1115 waivers in welfare and Medicaid from 1986 through 2012. I find that presidents approve waivers contingent not only on their ideological distance from Congress, as we might expect, but also on the share of the nation's governors in the president's party. While the president can use a waiver strategy to circumvent Congress, the division of authority in the federal system constrains the president's use of this strategy, as participation from governors is critical for success.