The presidency. Flashcards
amending, delaying or rejecting president leg proposals
Amending or delaying or rejecting the presidents legislative proposals - they reject them if they arent logical or congress thinks they will be unpopular with the electorate
eg republican congress voting down the trump administration’s attempts to repeal obama care - this humiliated trump
checks by congress on the president
amending, delaying or rejecting president leg proposals
power of the purse
investigation and impeachment
example of when congress supports legislation
if congress support the president has to accept amendments
eg bush found it easy to pass leg because the republicans controlled congress for 6 out of the 8 years he was in office eg there was little oversight and questioning with bush’s case for the iraq war
whereas…
eg obama had control of congress for only two years in both his terms and faced many committees with reports published on the terrorist attack in libya and obama felt that accountability was being used as a political weapon
power of the purse
congress can withold funing from the president
the founding fathers framed the constitution to encourage coopoeration between leg and exec
however this can increase party polarisation which results in gridlock
example of when congress with held funding from pres
trump 2018 gov shutdown - longest ever, gov shutdown for 35 days because he demanded $5.7 billion for the mexico wall and they rejected - stemmed from his campaign of “build the wall”
its estimated that the shut down cost the country at least $11 billion in the economy
investigation and impeachment
in a united gov they have been criticized for not being vigorous enough in its oversight function
in a divided gov they utilise it as an opportunity to embarrass the president
example of when congress investigated a president
trump
1 - russian interference allegations: 6 congressional committees investigated and reports were published in 2018 and 2020 which said they had been no interference
2 - impeachment: the first was for abuse of power and obstruction of congress, the second was for incitement of insurrection
checks by the supreme court on the pres
can declare acts of the exec unconstitutional
the sc can declare acts of the exec unconstitutional
these have signif influence in preventing the pres from overstepping their power because the pres has very little ability to pressure the sc. eg obama was very critical of the result of citizens united v fec but it made no impact
it was deliberately framed this way to seperate powers and prevent too much power to each branch
example of when the sc declared an act of the exec unconstitutional
obama’s use of recess appointments in 2014
he filled high level gov vacancies without consulting the senate
recess appointments are authorities the pres has to make temporary appointments when the senate aren’t in session seen in article 2, section 2
what is an imperial presidency
the misuse of pres power especially in secrecy and in foreign policy
the use of power without consideration for congress
what is imperilled presidency
a term formed by president ford to refer to a presidency characterised by ineffectiveness and weakness, resulting from congressional over-assertiveness
what popularised imperial presidency
Professor Aurther Schlesinger
who wrote a book called imperial presidency
he addressed concerns that modern presidency was ‘emperor like’ and dominated congress
example of presidents who took imperial presidency too far
Johnson - escalating the us involvement in the Vietnam war
Nixon - bombing cambodia without congress knowing; was caught saying ‘if the president does it, its not illegal’ which went against the pres powers laid out in article 2
Nixon - watergate scandal when he broke into the DNC and attempted to cover up. he was forced to resign after it became obvious he was going to be impeached
how do emergency powers correspond to an imperial presidency
during national emergencies pres are allowed to yse emergency powers to unlock federal funding and more than 100 other powers to limit other people’s liberties
