Presidency

Question 1

What are the 9 Presidential powers?

Answer 1

• Signing or vetoing legislation
• Appointing federal justices
• Recieving ambassadors
• Making treaties
• Granting pardons
• State of the Union address
• Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces
• Executing laws
• Calling special sessions of congress

Question 2

What is the executive branch made up of?

Answer 2

1. The President
2. The Vice-President
3. The Cabinet
4. Executive Office of the President (ExOP)
5. Federal Bureacracy

Question 3

What are the requirements to be President?

Answer 3

1. A natural born citizen
2. Be at least 35 years old
3. Have been a resident for at least 14 years

Question 4

What are the roles of the President?

Answer 4

1. Chief Executive
2. Commander-In-Chief
3. Chief Diplomat
4. Chief Legislator
5. Chief of State

Question 5

What powers does the President have under the role of Chief Executive? Give an example of each.

Answer 5

1. The President has a federal bureaucracy, consisting of agencies and 2.8 million federal employees
2. The powers of appointment and removal
   
   • Cabinet members, 10 agencies - quite limited and Senate can block.
   • James Comey removed as FBI leader by Trump
3. The power to grant reprieves and pardons
   
   • Unchecked power - not limited at all, is a check on judiciary
   • Examples include Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Lil Wayne

Question 6

What powers does the President have under the role of Commander-In-Chief?

Answer 6

1. Ultimate decision maker in military matters, nuclear force
2. Control of the armed forces
   
   • ​​​​​​​Congess has the sole power to declare war, but this has not been used since 1942 on Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary

Question 7

What are the limits of the President’s power to deploy troops?

Answer 7

• Power of the Purse can be used to check this power, e.g the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 to end Nixon’s war in Vietnam
• The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires that the President inform congress when sending troops into action within 48 hours and a 60 day limit
• However Congress will approve military action if it is popular, e.g. Iraq in 2002
• The President’s advisors may persuade him on this, or his meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (top military officials)

Question 8

What powers does the President have under the role of Chief Diplomat? Give an example for each.

Answer 8

1. To recognise foreign governments
   
   • Trump recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to the delight of his pro-Israel base
2. To make treaties
   
   • e.g. SALT 1
3. To make special agreements without congressional approval
   
   • ​e.g. the Paris Agreement
4. To nominate abassadors

Question 9

How do Executive Agreements differ to Treaties?

Answer 9

Treaties have to be ratified by 2/3 of the Senate, whilst executive agreements do not require any form of congressional approval. There have been far more EAs than treaties.

US v. Pink (1942) held that EAs have the same weight as treaties, but Reid v Covert (1957) held that these agreements cannot contradict federal law.

The Case-Zablocki act of 1972 also meant that the President must inform congress within 60 days of reaching an agreement, although compliance has been low

Question 10

What are the two other forms of executive agreements? Give an example of each

Answer 10

1. Non-binding political commitments - e.g. Iran Nuclear Deal (2015)
   
   • Must be resigned in order to ensure executive takes resposibility
   • Trump did not resign but Biden plans on rejoining
2. Congressional-executive agreement
   
   • Simple majoriy needed in Congress
   • Congress must consent to its ending
   • e.g. NAFTA or USMCA

Question 11

What powers does the President have under Chief Legislator?

Answer 11

1. In the State of the Union address, they set out their legislative program
2. The President can propose bills, and by using their power of persuasion they get congressional support for them
   
   • this is more effective when the president is popular
3. The President can veto legislation
   
   • This can be overriden by 2/3 of Congress

Question 12

How extensive is the President’s veto power? Give an example of its use and another example of when it was overruled

Answer 12

The President can veto a bill, such as Obama vetoing legislation that brought down the ACA 12 times during his presidency or the Keystone XL pipeline

This veto can be overriden, such as JASTA (allowed families of 9/11 to sue foreign governments), which was overriden by a very large majority of both chambers.

Question 13

What happens if the President refuses to sign a bill?

Answer 13

If the president refuses to sign a bill it automatically becomes law after 10 congressional days.

However, if Congress adjourns within 10 congressional days of the bill’s passing, the bill is killed - this is called a pocket veto. It was used by Bush to veto the Natinal Defense Authroisation Act of 2007, that reduced funding for the Iraq war.

Question 14

What is the line-item veto?

Answer 14

This was a tool that Congress passed in 1996 that allowed the President to veto individual lines or items without vetoing the whole bill, in attempt to tackle logrolling

The Supereme Court struck this down in Clinton v City of New York (1998) as unconstitutional.

Question 15

What powers does the President have under the role of Chief of State?

Answer 15

This is largely cermonial, including activities like:

• Going on official state visits
• Representing the nation in times of mourning or crisis, such as 9/11 or COVID
• Decorating war heroes

These activities give the president large exposure, which can help to improve the president’s popularity and therefore his powers of persusasion, as well as his chances of re-election.

Question 16

What are the special forms of Presidential power?

Answer 16

1. Emergency powers
2. Executive Orders
3. Executive Privilege

Question 17

How do emergency powers work? Give two detailed examples.

Answer 17

Emergency powers give president’s a range of abilities to be exercised in a national emergency.

1. Trump used a national emergency to allocate funds to build his border wall, and then vetoed the joint resolution that Congress passed to cancel the national emergency. Congress was unable to come up with the 2/3 supermajority to override this veto.
2. Iranian Hostage Crisis in the 1970s - this extended the President’s powers, and has since been renewed every year to continue these powers.

Question 18

What act changed how national emergencies worked? How has this act changed over time?

Answer 18

The National Emergencies Act of 1976 allowed for Congress to cancel a national emergency in an expedited manner (it could not be filibustered). It did not affect the President’s ability to declare one.

In INS V. Chadha (1983), the Supreme Court held that the use of a concurrent resolution (does not need President’s signature) was unconsitutional as it violated the Presentation clause, and so the act was ammended to use a joint resolution.

This has made national emergencies harder to challenge, as a supermajority is needed to override the President’s veto.

Question 19

What is an executive order? Give three examples.

Answer 19

A rule or regulation issued by the President that has the effect and force of law. It can enforce legislative statures, the constitution/treaties, or establish rules of executive agencies.

1. Obama raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $10.10/hour
2. Deffered Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) gave legitimacy to childhood arrivals who arrived while young
3. Deffered Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) was similar to DACA but for parents - this was overrturned by the Supreme Court in US v Texas (2015) but in a 4-4 split that upheld a lower court’s injuction. The order was then rescinded by the Trump administration in 2017.

Question 20

What are the limits of an executive order?

Answer 20

Under the Adminstrative Procedure Act (1946), all executive orders must be published in the Federal Register. They must not be ‘arbitrary and capricious’

If Congress is against the EO, then it has low effect - as legislation can be passed that negates it. If Congress supports the EO, it has a high level of power.

Question 21

Which executive orders of Trump were challenged? How successful were they?

Answer 21

1. Muslim Ban
   
   • People from majority Islamic countries were barred from entry into the USA
   • This was blocked twice by federal courts
   • Eventually, after the Trump adminsitration revised it to include North Korea, the Supreme Court upheld the EO in Trump v. Hawaii (2018)
2. Transgender Military Ban
   
   • This banned transgender people from serving in the US military.
   • This was not successfully challenged before it was rescinded by Biden - Trump v. Karnoski was never decided by the Supreme Court, but they refused to revoke the law whilst the lower courts decided.

Question 22

How has Biden used executive orders so far?

Answer 22

1. On his first day in office, President Biden signed 9 executive orders. By his third day, he had signed 18.
2. These rescined a range of Trump’s most controversial orders, including the muslim ban and the transgender military ban, as well as stopping construction of the border wall and rejoining the Paris agreement/WHO
3. He introduced a mask mandate and attempted to ramp up vaccine/PPE production and COVID testing
4. After his first month in office, he had signed over 50 EOs - almost half of them were reversals of Trump’s policies.

Question 23

What is executive privilege? How limited is it?

Answer 23

This is the ability of the President and their officials to refuse to appear and withold information from Congress or the courts.

The power is implied from the seperation of powers, meaning its limits are determined from the Courts. In US v. Nixon (1974) the Supreme Court held evidence could not be witheld to prevent evidence from being held in criminal proceedings. Trump used it to withold testimony on the Mueller investigation and on his tax returns.