Roles of the President

Chief legislator

The role of the president in proposing legislation can be summarised as the president having a more substantial role in initiating legislation than the Founding Fathers anticipated, by virtue of having primary responsibility for proposing major legislation in the State of the Union Address (delivered each January) and proposing the budget (sent to Congress each February), but having little control over the passage of bills once they have been presented to Congress. The check exerted by Congress on the president’s legislative role, is therefore, significant.

However, the president does have two weapons at his disposal while legislation is making its way through Congress.

Veto

After all the work that Congress has put into the passage of a bill, the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate do not want the final legislation to be blocked by the president. Therefore, the president is in a strong position to negotiate if there are some aspects of a bill that he would like to see changed. If Congress believes that the president is willing to veto a bill that has not taken his concerns into account, with all its efforts wasted, the legislature is likely to make the changes the president wants. If, however, Congress thinks the president is bluffing. It may refuse to alter the bill, in this game of legislative poker, there is another factor for both sides to consider. If the president is not bluffing and vetoes the bill, does Congress have sufficient support in both chambers (two-thirds) to override the veto? If it appears that there is sufficient support, the hand of Congress is strengthened and the president’s negotiating position is weakened.

Pocket Veto

The president may choose not to engage in a high profile contest with Congress when presented with a bill late in the year. With the complexity and slow pace of the legislative process, it is often the case that there is a rush to complete bills just before Congress goes into recess around Thanksgiving or Christmas (late November or December). Once Congress has closed its session for the year, any bill that has not been signed into law within 10days dies. This is known as the ‘pocket veto’. The bill is not sent back to Congress and therefore cannot be overridden, making the prospect of a pocket veto a particularly effective negotiating tool for the president.

Head of government

Once a bill is passed into law, the president is responsible for its implementation, even if he does not agree with aspects of it.

In recent years, presidents have made increasing use of signing statements, in which they announce an intention to apply the new laws selectively, putting little effort into applying those parts with which they disagree. President George Bush Jr made the most extensive use of this device, expressing objections to over 100 bills as he signed them into law.

The practical implementation of the law is done mainly by the 15 executive departments, which together with a range of other government agencies such as the Federal Reserve (the central bank), are collectively known as the federal bureaucracy. The heads (secretaries) of the 15 main departments make up the cabinet.

Presidents often find it difficult to get the cabinet to work together as a team to support them in the development of policy, and individual members of cabinet cannot always be relied upon to implement the president’s agenda in their departments. There are several reasons for these difficulties;

• The president does not have complete freedom of choice over whom to appoint to the cabinet. It is expected that the group of people who govern America will reflect the diversity of Americans. Therefore, presidents need to fill the 15 cabinet positions with women as well as men, ethnic minorities and people from all regions of the country. The first cabinet of President Obama included two Hispanics, two African-Americans, one Chinese and five women. All regions of the country were represented. He also included two Republicans.
• Even when the above considerations are taken into account, the president may face difficulty in appointing his preferred choices for specific cabinet positions. Some may not accept the offer of a post, either because of existing commitments or because government positions often pay far less than private-sector employment. Others, as we have seen, may not get through the confirmation process.
• Once cabinet members take up their positions, they will be subject to considerable pressure from career civil servants not to abandon projects and policies that have been in place for many years – sometimes decades. As a result, there is a tendency for the heads of departments to drift away from the president’s policy agenda over time.
• Even if this does not happen, other departmental pressures may obstruct the implementation of the president’s programme. Senior civil servants, who work in the government departments, may have long-term projects that do not have the support of the president and may be willing to work with groups who do support their priorities. They may forge strong alliances with pressure groups that have similar objectives and, if these two groups are joined by key members of congressional committees, who fund the work of the executive branch, an iron triangle if formed. This can thwart the will of the president by implementing programmes in ways that conflict with his intentions.

To overcome these obstacles to the delivery of his programme, the president can use the spoils systems and the Executive Office of the Presidency (EXOP).

The spoils system enables the president to appoint political allies to the federal bureaucracy, where they monitor the extent to which civil servants are implementing programmes in ways that are consistent with the president’s political priorities.

Chief Diplomat

Diplomatic relations with other countries are mainly conducted through the State Department, under the leadership of the secretary of state. The appointment of the secretary state is therefore one of the most important appointments that the president makes, if other countries are not confident that the secretary of state speaks for the president, then diplomatic negotiations are likely to be unfruitful.

When there is a major agreement to be signed, the presidents becomes directly involved in the process. However, any treaties that are negotiated by the president’s administration have to be ratified by the Senate. Often this does not present a problem for the president, but the Senate has rejected some important agreements. Thus, presidents often use a loophole in international law – executive agreements – to reduce the likelihood of the agreement being blocked in Congress.

Commander-in-chief

The president is entitled to send the USA’s armed services into action. At the time that this power was conferred on the president, the USA had not standing army and the world’s most powerful naval powers were over 3,000 miles (4,800 km) away in Europe, in an age hen ships took several weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Aircraft had not yet been invented. Moreover, with America’s leaders being descendants of refugees from Europe, there was an expectation that the USA would avoid hostilities with the European powers. Today, in the age of supersonic travel, the USA’s annual military budget roughly matches that of all other countries in the world combined.

Although the Founding Fathers had no concept of the USA as a global military superpower, they put in place a check on how the president could use this position as commander-in-chief. In an era when any prolonged military engagement was preceded by a formal declaration of war, the power to declare war was given to Congress. Today, formal declarations are rare – even in the lengthy build-up to the conflict in Iraq in 2003 there was no suggestion that war should be declared.

This combination of immensely powerful armed force, capable of being deployed anywhere in he world, and a largely redundant check on the president’s use of these forces, has led to attempts to find new ways of imposing controls on the commander-in-chief.

• After the Vietnam War, which lasted over a decade and cost more than 50,000 American lives, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973. This forbids the president from authorising combat operations lasting longer than 60 days unless Congress has given its agreement or a declaration of war is made. However, the resolution has only been invoked twice, and on both occasions the president had already announced the withdrawal of forces, making the contribution of Congress merely cosmetic.
• In 2007, the Democrat-controlled Congress attached a timetable for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq to a bill providing funds for the war. The president simply announced that he would veto the bill unless the timetable was deleted and that the Democrats would be responsible for the death of any soldier killed as a result of a lack of funds. The Democrats yielded.

If Congress has proved an ineffective check on the commander-in-chief, a constraint has appeared in recent years from an unexpected source; the Supreme Court. Historically, the judiciary has avoided involvement in foreign and security matters, deferring to the executive. However, since President Bush, in his capacity of commander-in-chief, declare a ‘war on terror’ (in response to the attacks of 11 September 2001), which was followed by the arrest and detention without trial of people classified as ‘enemy combatants’, his policy has been challenged by the judiciary on three occasions.

• In Rasul v Bush (2004), the court ruled that detainees held on a US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were entitled to the protection of the Constitution of the USA.
• In Hamdan v Rumsfeld (2006), the court ruled that the detainees could not be subject to military trials without the specific authorisation of Congress.
• The Republican majority in Congress responded to the Hamdan verdict by passing the Military Commissions Act. However, in Boumediene v Bush (2008), the court ruled that the Military Commissions Act was unconstitutional as it did not guarantee a fair trial.

Despite these challenges by the time President Obama took office and ordered that plans be made for the dismantling of the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, the executive had taken no active steps to comply with the court’s ruling by either releasing or putting on trial the remaining detainees.

Head of State

As head of state, the president has a steady stream of ceremonial duties, none of which appears political in character. However, in this capacity he is effectively the symbol of his nation, and as long as he is seen this way he can use it to advance his political agenda. President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the opportunities to speak out on important issues to a national audience as the ‘bully pulpit’. When allied to effective communicative skills, the president can use his position as head of state to present himself as the father of the nation rather than a party politician. President F.D Roosevelt (cousin to the president who coined the phrase ‘bully pulpit’) regularly gave radio broadcasts that sounded more like personal conversations than political speeches in order to persuade people of the benefits of his New Deal programme. Ronald Reagan in the 1980s adopted a similar style to great effect.

This political asset can become a liability, however, if the president behaves in ways that are seen as inappropriate to a head of state. President Nixon, during the Watergate scandal, was seen as having damaged not just his personal reputation but those of the presidency and the nation. The same was true of President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And the record-low personal ratings of President Bush Jr when he left office can be traced to his use of his position as the symbol of the nation in the aftermath of 9/11, at a time of national unity, to promote his party and attack the opposition.

Party leader

As the person with the highest profile in his party, the president is effectively the leader of that party. He is expected to use his position to help raise funds for others running for office and to give his public support. This is especially important during the mid-term elections, when he has been in office for 2 years, if he is still popular, as President Bush Jr was in 2002, he can help his party win or retain control of Congress, which is an advantage when it comes to passing legislation.

However, as President Bush Jr discovered, it is difficult to balance the demands of head of state with those of party leader. His aggressive campaigning in 2002 turned him from a figure who united the country to one who divided it.