The Executive Branch Qualifications for the President The

The Executive Branch

Qualifications for the President • The constitution declares that the president must be 35 years of age. • A natural-born American citizen. • And a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.

Presidential Trends • Before the 2008 election, all of the nations presidents were white males of Western European ancestry. • Two sets of presidents were father and son (John and John Quincy Adams, and George W. Bush) • Two were grandfather and grandson ( William Henry, and Benjamin Harrison) • Two were cousins (Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt) • All presidents were Protestant Christians except John Kennedy, who was Roman Catholic.

Presidential Trends Cont. • Most presidents have been fairly wealthy; and majority of them have been experienced politicians. • Most presidents come from states outside of the south. • Recently social barriers have begun to be broken; three southerners have came into office (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush) The first Roman Catholic (Kennedy) and even a divorced person has been elected to the White House (Ronald Reagan) • Most importantly, the election of Barack Obama has shattered the race barrier.

Term of Office • The presidents constitutional term of office is four years. • Originally, the constitution placed no limit of terms for the president. George Washington, our first president, set a custom of seeking no more than two terms. Which every president honored until FDR in the early 1940’s. • After FDR, a democrat (Harry Truman) and served four terms, this made republicans upset and launched them to amend the constitution to limit the president to two terms. They succeeded, and led to the twenty-second Amendment of the constitution: presidents are limited to two terms.

Impeachment and Removal • Impeachment is a process in which an executive or judicial office is formally accused of an offense that COULD lead to removal from office. • The Constitution says bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors are reasons for impeachment. Founders originally thought that there were two major reasons for impeachment. 1. President abusing powers, being a tyrant OR 2. President who failed to carry out duties of the office. • In practice, however, impeachment roots from violations of law rather than political misdeeds. • Impeachment requires both houses of Congress. The house accuses the president by a majority vote, then the senate tries the president. and then the senate must vote by a 2 -3 margin to remove the president from office.

Succession The vice president can succeed a president who cannot finish their term, for reasons like being removed or death. If the vice president cannot finish their term, then the speaker of the house will fill the role, and so on and so forth. However, because of the 25 th amendment, the order of succession most likely won’t reach any further than vicepresident. Another statement of the 25 th amendment is if the acting president should become disabled or unable to carry out his duties, the vice president will take his place. Disability can be fought by the president. If congress gets a two-thirds vote, they can vote the president as disabled and replace him.

Presidential Powers • The president of the United States has a number of powers that only he has, he is the head diplomat, and he is the head of the military. As head diplomat, he deals with foreign nations and makes treaties.

Inherent Powers • inherent powers are the powers vested in the government particularly in the area of foreign and defense, it doesn’t depend on any specific grant of power by the constitution, an example would be the Louisiana Purchase in which president Thomas Jefferson bought land from another country. He used his inherent powers to do it because nowhere in the constitution says that he could buy land from a foreign country. Presidents using inherent powers is very controversial thing because they involve an extension in the authority they have and there presidential power. People called Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite because he said that the national government was limited to powers clearly delegated by the constitution,

Judicial Powers • the president has the power to pardon someone. A pardon is an executive action that frees an accused or convicted person from all penalties for an offense. The president can pick the federal judges pending on the majority vote confirmed by the senate. It is usually always approved by the senate but not without scrutiny. The president can also give reprieves. A reprive is an executive action that delays punishment for a crime.

Executive Powers • : The president is the nation’s chief executive which means he is the head of the executive branch. The president as head of the executive branch can issue executive orders to manage the federal bureaucracy. some presidency

The Development of the modern presidency • The first six presidents did not use hardly any vetoes at all but in more recent years vetoes are used much more often. Role of president is also growing and they have much more responsibility. Franklin D. Roosevelt is regarded as first modern president. WWII also increased presidential power, wartime always increases presidential power. Modern president uses executive orders to act without congressional approval. Modern president has become personalized. President has expanded influence

The Organization of the presidency • Significant growth in size and power of white house staff and Executive Office of the president. President selects White House staff without Senate confirmation. Intense focus on marketing the president undermines sound policy development.

Executive office of the president • group of white house offices and agencies that develop and implement the president’s policies and programs. Established in 1939 after special investigative commission concluded that the responsibilities of the presidency were too great for any one individual. Legislation creating the executive office allowed the president to create and disband components without further congressional authorization. The size and composition of the executive office may differ from administration to administration. They have 11 units now in the Obama administration. The major agencies of the executive office are the NSC, OMB, CEA, and Council on environmental equality, office of science and technology policy, office of the United States trade representative, and the domestic policy council. The first two are the most prominent. The NCS advises the chief executive on matters involving national security. Consists of the president, vice president, secretaries of state and defense, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the director of the CIA. The OMB is an agency that assists the president in preparing the budget. This assists the president in preparing the annual budget being committed to congress, screens bills drawn up by the executive branch departments and agencies to ensure that they do not conflict with the president’s policy goals, monitors expenditures by executive branch departments, and evaluates regulations proposed by executive agencies.

Presidential Bureaucracy and Presidential Influence: • the presidential bureaucracy is essential to the effective operation of the modern presidency. A good staff is an important element of presidential power. Members of the staff not only advise the president on policy issues and political strategy, but they often act on behalf of the president in dealing with congress, members of executive branch bureaucracy, and the media.

Theories of Presidential Leadership. • Presidential Character: James David Barber believes that a presidents performance in office depends on personality traits formed primarily during childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Classified among two dimensions, the first involves the amount of energy an individual brings to office. The more active presidents throw themselves into the work immersing themselves with it. The second involves the president’s attitude toward the job, positive presidents enjoy their work, and negative presidents feel burdened by the weight of the office. Barber used these dimensions to create four types of general presidential personalities. Activepositive, active-negative, passive-positive, passive-negative. • Leadership Style: Six qualities associated with effective presidential leadership. • • Communication Skills. • • Organizational Capacity • • Political Skills • • Vision • • Cognitive Skill • • Emotional Intelligence

Cont. • The Power to Persuade: Richard Neustadt believes that presidents succeed or fail bases on their skills as political bargainers and coalition builders. Neustadt points out the presidents lack authority to command public officials other than members of the white house, the president must convince other political actors to cooperate with them voluntarily. This would be difficult because the interests of other political actors do not always coincide with the concerns of the chief executive. The president can’t count on the cooperation of the federal bureaucracy. Except for the white house staff, executive office agencies, and cabinet members. So the president has to bargain with the political actors for their participation.

Presidential Popularity • Presidential popularity influences presidential power, and affects the president’s ability to appeal to the public and others for policy support. Popular presidents tend to enjoy more success with congress than an unpopular Chief Executive. For example, President George W Bush gained lots of political support even from the democrats after 9/11. However, in 2006 people found it easy to oppose the legislative agenda so his ratings fell back to about 40%. Democrats attacked him whenever possible, and the Republicans boasted about their independence from the White House. • • Newer Presidents usually have a lot more support and are more popular at least for a few months. The tendency of a president to enjoy higher levels of support during the first few months after his inauguration is known as the honeymoon effect. During this period, opposing political leaders and the press tend to reserve judgment, waiting for the president to act before offering comment. Another effect on the president’s popularity is the Rally Effect. This is when the president’s popularity soars during time of international crises, such as when America invaded Iraq, and again when Saddam Hussein was captured. The appearance and size of the Rally Effect depends on how the crisis is represented to the public in terms of media coverage.

Presidency in context • Political scientists have been trying to explain the role of the presidency in the policymaking process by focusing on contextual factors, such as international environment, the state of the nation’s economy, and the party balance in congress. Some international developments can expand presidential power while others can weaken the president. The party balance in congress has a huge impact on the ability of presidents to achieve their goals; presidents are more effective when their party controls congress because congressional leaders work with the White House to enact the president’s priorities into law and to derail legislation the president opposes.