American government and politics

Politics

The Constitution delineates the powers related to the different branches of government, the judicial, legislative and executive. This breakdown is outlined in Article II. In Section 2, the President is appointed the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. The President also has the power to make treaties, appoint ambassadors, other public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, with the advice of the Senate. The President may appoint lower officials without the Senate's approval, and the President may fill vacancies during recess of the Senate. The President also has the power of veto over laws presented to him by Congress.

The President also has powers that have been granted by Congress. As head of the executive branch, the President has extensive power within that branch to guide funding and projects, and to make appointments. The President can utilize what are known as executive orders, which apply to people working within the executive branch, who follow these orders on the basis of their duties.

Within this context, the Presidency has maintained the same powers it has always had within the Constitution. For example, the power of veto has not been altered in this time. There are prior era where the President exercised much greater veto power than in the present era. For example, Franklin Roosevelt issued 635 vetoes, and Grover Cleveland 414. The last four Presidents combined has issued 85 vetoes, compared with 78 for Ronald Reagan. Thus, there is no evidence, either at the legal level nor at the output level, that there has been any change in veto power.

The executive order is another element of Presidential power. By virtue of commanding the executive branch, the President has the authority to guide the use of resources within that branch. Again, there is no evidence that the use of executive order has expanded. Franklin Roosevelt utilized 3522 executive orders, but in the last several decades usage has remained relatively stable, in the range of 150-200 per term, with Barack Obama having the lowest rate of executive order of any President since Rutherford B. Hayes (Peters, 2013). There has been criticism, however, that the nature of executive order since Reagan has changed, for example the use of executive order to change the spirit of the Safe Drinking Water Amendments of 1986 (Covington, 2012).

There is no evidence in the above facts that the power of the President has grown in the past few decades. Versus the judicial branch, the Supreme Court overturned Clinton's executive order 13155 in Alexander v. Sandoval and E.O. 12954 as well, highlighting that the judicial branch still has the power to check the actions of the President. Congress retains the power to make laws. President Obama has only issued two vetoes, indicating perhaps that the House of Representatives has trouble writing legislation that can get past the Senate, let alone the President. If there are issues with getting laws passed, they lie with the branch that is not working hard enough to write laws that will get passed. The system works when the legislative branch and executive branch work together, but that process starts with writing laws. President Clinton in particular came under criticism for relying heavily on executive order to govern in the face of a divided government, for example using executive order to lend money to Mexico after Congress refused to grant the loan (Covington, 2012).

Another way that the power of the executive branch could be altered, given that the actual authority of the President has remained unchanged, is if there has been an expansion in how much of government falls under the executive branch. This does not create a de jure expansion of Presidential power, but it does create a de facto expansion because more of the nation's governance comes under direct Presidential control. Marshall (2008) argues that the expansion of Presidential power is "uncontestable." To support his argument, he contends that the beginning of the current path of expansion in Presidential power is at least fifty years old. In the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co v. Sawyer, it was noted that "a gap exists between the President's paper powers and his real powers." This argument rests on the soft powers that the President holds, as the most influential person in the country.

The argument that the executive branch has increased in power vis-a-vis the legislative branch rests not on excessive use of executive order or Presidential proclamation, as formal authority has changed little over the decades, but in the types of executive orders that have been issued, and in the expansion of soft power. In a sense, Congress can only blame itself, as it becomes increasingly partisan, and the American people have elected some utterly incompetent representatives in recent years. The Congress has thus essentially weakened itself, not only giving Presidents reason to sidestep Congressional authority in order to govern, but making it easier for them to do so. When Congress does mount a challenge to Presidential authority, it often takes the tone of childish lashing out, rather than genuine leadership. In that environment, it is both reasonable and expected that a President would use whatever powers he had in order to continue to govern. The view that this has occurred more frequently over the past five Presidents is a fairly common one.