Executive branch Institution worksheet alexander leija
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The Executive Using the links provided please answer the questions in your own words using your textbook and the links provided. . Please do not copy and paste sections of articles or google to try and find answers. Everything you need to answer the questions are contained in the links and in your textbook (if specifically referred to). As Congress has abdicated its responsibility for making laws more focus has shifted to the executive branch. Senator Sasse said, Congresspeople have delegated large swaths of their power to “alphabet soup agencies” located in the executive branch that the president is responsible for. Below, you see the growth of government spending in the United States. While the big upticks in spending can be attributed to wars (War of 1812, Civil War, WWI, and WWII), there has been a tendency for government to emerge from wars bigger than when they entered the war. In addition, the change in government activities as we moved from an agrarian economy in the 18ht and 19
th
centuries to an Industrial economy in the 20
th
century redefined governments role in the economy. All governments, not just the Federal government have grown over time. 1.
According to the chart below, in 2018 federal government expenditures were _35____% of GDP 2.
In 2018, total government spending was __31.6__% of GDP. As the chart clearly indicates, government at all levels has grown as the demands of society on government have increased. But clearly, a changing philosophy about the role of the federal government in society has let it to grow the most in terms of expenditures. Over time this has led to two sometimes contradictory and sometimes complementary dimensions to the presidency. The first is the Single Executive Image. The Single Executive Image
is the view that there is a single person leading our government and the free world. The Single Executive Image portrays the president speaking in a lone clear voice, as the one person in charge of government. The president is the nation’s principle problem solver, who identifies the nation’s most pressing issues and offers solutions. In times of crisis, The President protects the nation. As the only person elected by the entire country, the president is seen as the representative of the people. The president is the single most important, visible, powerful, and unique person in our nation. The presidency has come to embody our hopes and our fears. It personalizes the entire executive branch in the office of the presidency by embodying all its units, staff, and decisions in one person –
The President. American government has become presidential government. The Single Executive Image stems from four factors: 1. Presidential Elections 2. The Mass Media 3.
Presidential actions 4.
Public perceptions Presidential Elections: The process of electing the president has changed over time. Nominating the president began as a congressional activity in what is called the “King Caucus”
. It then changed to national conventions taking center stage
and finally to primaries and caucuses becoming the main way of getting delegates. Read the following article and answer the questions below. http://connect.brookings.edu/narrowing-the-field-lesson-
one?ecid=ACsprvt8vH6Dx3uY270mjJklLDxmWwa1cHQMH1FPLwKBFMyu1GwRKIt1mJZfiyvsi6exxNMKSI9Y&utm_campai
gn=Email%20Course%20-
%20Narrowing%20the%20Field&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=81758857 3.
According to the author, who controlled the nomination of presidents from the 1830’s
-
1960’s?
King caucus/congress caucus. 4.
How many ballots did it take for Woodrow Wilson to secure the 1912 Democratic Nomination? 5.
What events caused the change in 1972 that put primaries in the forefront of nomination fights? One of the events that caused the change in 1972 was the reform of the Democratic Party’s delegate selection process after the 1968 election .The other one was the Watergate scandal. After capturing the nomination of a party, presidential candidates must run a national campaign and secure the votes of the people. The electoral college ensures that candidates will seek to build a majority national coalition although because of the winner-take-all nature of state electoral votes we have had candidates that lose the popular vote but win the electoral college (Wrong Winners). 6.
According to your textbook
, who is the most recent “Wrong Winner”?
James Buchanan The shift in the nomination of presidents has led to individuals (their personalities, resources, and connections) to eclipse Political Parties in shaping presidential choices for voters and shaping the expectations voters have for the president. Mass Media:
Over time the mass media has come to focus increasingly on the president. This study from the 1980’s show how much more the media focused on the president when compared to other branches and that tendency has increased.
7.
What does the chart tell us abou
t news coverage of America’s political institutions?
Presidential Actions:
Presidents themselves have contributed to the growth of the signle executive image by seeking to increase their power. Beginning with Washington, presidents claimed “Inherent Powers” as a tool and in the Great Depression in the 1930’s,
President Roosevelt was delegated broad powers to create programs to deal with the economic crisis. Today, some legal scholars claim that the president has Unitary Powers that are virtually unchecked. 8.According to the article, “
Trump Says He Alone Can Do It. His Attorney General Nominee Usually Agrees.
”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/william-barr-executive-power.html How does William Barr reject “mainstream” constitutional views?
Mr. President, there’s no doubt that you have the authority to launch an attack,” Mr. Barr said, as he later recalled. 9.
What did William Barr’s broad view of presidential authority lead him to tell the Trump Administration (in a 19 page memo) about the Mueller investigation into obstruction of Justice? The constitution, he claimed, does not permit congress to make it a crime for the president to exercise his executive power corruptly. 10 What did William Barr say about coercive interrogation? “Generally, under the laws of war, absent treaty, there is nothing wrong with coercive interrogation, applying pain, discomfort and other things to make people talk,” he said, pausing, then adding, “as long as it doesn’t cross the line and involve the gratuitous barbarity that’s involved in torture.”
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President Joe Biden has signed a flurry of executive orders, actions and memorandums aimed at rapidly addressing the coronavirus pandemic and dismantling many of President Donald Trump's policies. In just his first 6 days in office, he signed 33 executive orders. Executive orders largely deal with domestic policy and are essentially laws that do not have to be passed by congress. In the international sphere, presidents use executive agreements to bypass Senate approval of treaties. 11. Looking at the chart (above), what has happened to the Use of executive agreements when compared to the use of treaties and why is that relevant to our discussion of the SEI? Public Attitudes:
Since the turn of the 20
th
century, presidential popularity has tracked domestic and international events and conditions in ways that seem to hold the president responsible and not congress. The chart below shows one measure of the economy (consumer sentiment) and presidential job approval. There is a close relationship. Not only are presidents rewarded or punished for the state of the economy, their job approval is also affected by international events. Wars and crisis shift presidential job approval. Scandals may also hurt presidential popularity. https://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx Using the link and outside research, please answer the next two questions. 12
. Why was Richard Nixon’s job approval rating so low during 1975?
Watergate crisis. 13
. Why did George W. Bush’s job approval rating spike in 2001?
September eleven attacks. While the Single Executive Image is one half of the presidency, Congress
’s delegation of powers, our expectation that the president does more, and presidents’ desires for more power have led to a situation where no one person can do all the things that a president has over time acquired responsibility for. That simply put, the president needs help to accomplish his responsibilities. This has led to the growth of the “
Institutional Presidency
.” The institutional presidency is the collection of offices, units, and people who do the work for which the president is held responsible. Early presidents came into office and were able to fire every federal worker right down to the people that delivered mail and replace them with people of their choice. Often, the
y were political supporters. This system of “Patronage” meant that jobs in the federal bureaucracy were filled by people whose chief qualification was loyalty to the president rather than competency. You could get both but you couldn’t have competency wi
thout loyalty. This concerned Good Governemnt Advocates. There were calls for creating a professional civil service and President Garfield
’s assassination in 1881 by Charles J. Guiteau provided the impetus to pass reform. Guiteau had followed various professions in his life, but in 1880 had determined to gain federal office by supporting what he expected would be the winning Republican ticket. He composed a speech, "Garfield vs. Hancock", and got it printed by the Republican National Committee and campaigned for Garfield. He felt his contributions were sufficient to warrant a job in the federal government. When his attempts were rebuffed, he shot Garfield in Washington D.C. on July 2
nd
. Congress went to work on a civil service reform act called the Pendleton Act and passed it in January of 1883. The Pendleton Act provided that Federal Government jobs be awarded based on merit and that government employees be selected through competitive exams. The act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law. The law further forbids requiring employees to give political service or contributions. The Civil Service Commission was established to enforce this act. The Pendleton Act fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between the President and the executive branch. Before the Pendleton act anyone who worked for the president was dependent on the president for his/her job but after the Pendleton Act, federal government employees worked for multiple administrations of different political parties. This lead to a decline of presidential authority over the very people that carry out his orders. Before the Pendleton act, if you didn’t d
o what the president said, he could fire you but afterwards ignoring or disobeying the president didn’t have the same consequences.
14. Who was Charles J. Guiteau and why was he important in the creation of a professional civil service? Was an American man who assassinated president James A Garfield. His trial and execution sparked a public debate about the need for civil service reform and the elimination of the spoils system. 15. How did a professional civil service hired based on merit change the control a president has over the federal government bureaucracy? B
y reducing the president’s ability to appoint and remove bureaucrats based on political loyalty or patronage. Instead, the president has to rely on his or her political appointees to impose his or her goals on the merit-protected bureaucrats who are nonpartisan and have more expertise and continuity. An Example: The White House Travel Office (WHTO)was created in the Andrew Jackson administration and serves to handle travel arrangements for the White House press corps, with costs billed to the participating news organizations. By 1992, it had seven employees with a yearly budget of $7 million. Staffers serve at the pleasure of the president however, in practice, the staffers were career employees who in some cases had worked in the Travel Office since the 1960s and 1970s, through both Democratic and Republican administrations. Travel Office Director Billy Ray Dale had held that position since 1982 and had started in the Travel Office in 1961 serving 3 Democrat and 4 Republican administrations. According to the White House, the incoming Clinton administration had heard reports of irregularities in the Travel Office and possible kickbacks to an office employee from a charter air company. A review discovered that Dale kept an off-book ledger, had $18,000 of unaccounted-for checks, and kept chaotic office records and thus the administration decided to fire the Travel Office staff and reorganize it.
The WHTO staff were terminated on May 19, 1993, by White House director of administration David Watkins. Dale and his staff were replaced with Little Rock Arkansas based World Wide Travel, a company with ties to the Clintons. The travel office affair quickly became the first major ethics controversy of the Clinton presidency and an embarrassment for the new administration. Criticism from political opponents and especially the news media became intense. White House pool reporters defended Dale and the Travel Office staff for the excellent job that they did. This episode illustrates a fundamental aspect of the Institutional presidency. While the president’s staff serve at the pleasure of the President, the people who are affected by the work and who develop relationships with the personal are the members of the clientele groups who use the services of the agency. 16. Why would White House pool reporters defend the White House Travel Office? For the excellent job that they did. The vignette on the travel office illustrates the nature of the Institutional Presidency and bureaucracy generally. Even though these were appointed positions, because their job was to deal with the press and because they were primarily performing a non-partisan function, they had developed relationships with their clientele group (the press and in some ways the travel office worked more for the press than the President). When Clinton fired them, the press was up in arms because their friends had been fired. If people who “serve at the pleasure of the president” can develop relationships with clientele groups, then just think how close civil servants who have protections as merit employees feel. 17. What reality of the White House Travel office did President Clinton and his friends fail to understand. If people who “serve at the pleasure of the president” can develop relationships with clientele groups, then just think how close civil servants who have protections as merit employees feel. An institution is an organization of people established to carry out some set of functions. There are many institutions in our society. Schools and colleges, churches, corporations, police departments, legislatures, and government departments are some examples. A peculiar characteristic of an institution is that it acts independently of the people within it. An institution establishes regular patterns of behavior for its members to follow. Typically, an institution is arranged with a division of labor. Within an institution, offices are set up in which people specialize in one task and know little about the rest. Institutions also establish standard operating procedures –
rules according to which things are done. People within institutions follow these pre-established routines, which endure as people come and go. People
behave in these ways when they are within the institution even if they might not be inclined to do so when they are outside it. People can modify institutions but often an institution’s capacity to change people surpasses people’s ability to change the institution. 18
. What is the “peculiar characteristic” of an Institution?
I that it acts independently of the people within it. The American Presidency and the bureaucracy that the President oversees are institutions. The institutional presidency is an organization of people who carry out the policy, political, and public functions for which the president has acquired responsibility. As the Government has grown and the president has acquired more responsibility, the presidency has grown. The Presidential Institution is not like a small family business that takes care of maintaining the president’s residence. It is a complex organization of 42 separate offices and over 1600 employees. It operates with a division of labor. The Executive Office of the President (EOP) was created in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help him get a handle on the growing federal bureaucracy. The Great Depression increased the size of the federal government and all the associated departments, agencies, and bureaus grew. As the Executive Office of the President grew to keep pace with the growth in the Bureaucracy, President Truman saw his control of the EOP slipping. More decisions were becoming routine and he has less control. In response, President Truman created the White House Office (WHO) in 1949 to try and give the president more control and coordination over the Executive Office of the President. Today, 40% of the employees in the Institutional Presidency (WHO and EOP) are career merit based civil servants who are protected under civil service rules. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/us/politics/tricia-newbold-whistle-blower-white-
house.html 19. When was the Executive office of the president created? Why? Was created in 1939 by president Franklin D. Roosevelt to help him to get a handle on the growing federal bureaucracy. In addition, when a new administration occupies the White House, 60% of the appointed staff roll over to the new president. When the president is of the same party as his predecessor, it is 72%. Moreover, when the presidency changes party hands, 52% of the EOP and WHO employees continue in their roles. Watch this video to answer the question below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L2513JFJsY&feature=related 20. Who is Richard Clark and how many different presidents has he served? List the presidents and their parties. Raegan,Bush,Clinton. 3 Republicans/D 21. According to President Clinton, why didn’t he send troops to go after Bin Laden? CIA and FBI refused. Offices in the White House Office and the Executive Office of the President specialize in foreign, domestic, military, and economic policy, press relations, public appearances, congressional affairs and group interests. Over the years the institution has developed standard operating procedures for developing budgets, legislation, and vetoes, to name only a few. These procedures have continued from president to president with only modest changes- not at all surprising when you see continuity in the staff. In fact, most “Presidential Decisions” are made without personal involvement by the president. The White House Institution issues decisions in the president’s name but the president may know little if anything about them. The Presidential Institution offers the president a resource. Presidents recognize that they cannot do all the work alone or with a small group of close advisors. Presidents employ the institution to develop policy proposals, devise strategies to see the proposals through Congress, plan public relations efforts, fight wars, negotiate with foreign governments, and meet the demands of the press, state and city governments, and interest groups. They also use the institution to oversee the executive branch and pursue cases in court. But just as the Institution of the Presidency is a resource, it can also be a constraint. Decisions may be made that come back to haunt the president. People in offices may not get presidential input when decisions are made in the president’s name since they have standard operating procedures to follow. The Presidential Institut
ion is often outside a president’s control.
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Watch this video and answer the question that follows. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/13/trump-
coronavirus-press-conference-pbs-yamiche-alcindor-question-sot-vpx.cnn 22. What does President Trump say when he is asked about why he disbanded the Pandemic Disease Office in the National Security Council. What does this tell us about the nature of the Institutional president? D
idn’t do it.
The broader Executive branch that the president oversees are a set of institutions in their own right and are not “run” by the president. Except at the highest levels, the president has very little say over the 2.7 million people who work in over 2000 executive departments, agencies, bureaus, commissions, and boards. The Departments and bureaus and agencies have their own standard operating procedures and goals. They respond to the president but also a variety of other actors in the political system. Just as the WHTO developed relationships with the press, agencies in the bureaucracy develop their own relationship with clientele groups. The President is responsible but is often out of the loop as the previous clip illustrates. According to your Instructor, what are the major types of executive branch organizations? 23.Indepent regulatory agencies. 24. Government corporations 25. Independent regulatory agencies. Let’s take the newest cabinet department: The Department of Homeland Security.
In the above organizational chart, the people that the president appoints are in Green. 27. How many people does the president appoint who are confirmed by the senate in this Department (not every green box is a single individual)? 21 In a department with a budget of $42.7 Billion and 166,097 permanent civilian employees, do we really expect the President to have very much influence on the day to day operations of this department and the decisions the department makes? However, when those decisions go south and have disastrous consequences, it is the president that has responsibility. President Trump intrinsically understands that he has little control over the departments and agencies in the federal bureaucracy. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-turnover-easier-to-make-moves/ 28
. Why does President Trump say he likes “Acting” cabinet members?
Because he can move quickly. This is where it is important to differentiate the ty
pes of decisions that the “President” is faced with. Most presidential decisions, whether on the budget or legislation or foreign affairs are routine decisions that are made by people in the federal departments and agencies coordinating with the White House Office and the Executive Office of the Presidency using routinized standard operating procedures. Most are not made by the president. Decisions from one administration to the next are often the same because the same people are making them using the same procedures.
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/n5dnf3/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-an-energy-independent-future 30. What does this clip illustrate about energy policy in the United States? That nobody didn
’
t do anything. Yes, Presidents matter but they matter in their ability to manage the gigantic executive branch and the decisions they make in those circumstances where an unusual event arises for which there are not existing standard operating procedures. Often people in the Institutional Presidency simply ignore the president and make the decisions they feel are best. Watch the following clip from 31:00-44:30 http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/23/confidence_men_author_ron_suskind_responds and answer the questions below. 31. What was the big crisis that Obama faced upon becoming president? Collapsing economy and housing bank. 32. How did Sweden and Japan deal with their financial crises? Japan they give the money. 33. Did Obama decide he wanted US policy to be more like Japan or Sweden? Sweden. 34. What did Obama decide after the March meeting about Citi Group and who did he say would develop the plan? Restructure banks. 35. What was the dispute between Tim Geithner and Larry Summers about? Investors 36. What was the plan to resolve Citi Group that was ultimately developed? There was no plan. If even appointees like Tim Geithner a
re willing to ignore a president’s order, how will career employees act when they are told by the president that they need to do X. They can carry it out if they want to or they could just wait, slow walk, fly under the radar, say they are “developing a proposal” with no intention of doing anything because almost every career employee knows that in 4 years or less, a new presidential election may replace the occupant of the Oval Office. Read this article “I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration” and answer the two questions below. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html 37. What does Anonymous say that he/she and others in the administration are trying to do in the article? 38. Does he want President Trump to suceed? Please watch this interview with John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on the government’s torture of suspected terrorists. Watch from 1:12:30 to 1:14:06 and answer the 2 questions that follow. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/matt-taibbi-podcast-john-kiriakou-cia-espionage-act-906981/
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39. What does John Kiriakou say about the existence of a “Deep State” and what does he call it? Federal bureaucracy. 40
. How does he say the “Deep State” responds to presidents they don’t like?
Ignore them and wait for them after they going in 4 or 8 years. The Single Ex
ecutive Image colors people’s perceptions about government. President’s importance, visibility, uniqueness, and power loom. In the minds eye of most Americans, Presidents are at the center of the decision-making process. The Single Executive Image says that Presidents make decisions alone or with a few close advisors. As Theodore Sorensen, a top Kennedy advisor wrote, “In the ‘valley of decision,’ there can be but one lonely man
-The President of the United States. Many presidential decisions, however, are mundane and ordinary. Indeed, the Single Executive Image assures they are. It places demands on Presidents to make decisions about everything. Because of the range of issues -both routine and extraordinary-on which the Single Executive Image requires action, the Institutional Presidency has grown to help presidents make their decisions. In the end, the people in the Bureaucracy that are career employees of the executive branch have tremendous power to help and assist a new president or to thwart and block him. The President may be the head of the bureaucracy but to get anything accomplished he needs the entire bureaucracy to participate. And the Institution of the Presidency helps him do that. 41. According to the text above, what two types of decisions is the president responsible for? Mundane and ordinary and exctraodinary. The Single Executive Image and the Institutional Presidency are two interconnected but contradictory parts of a whole. The Single Executive Image displays the president as the one official uniquely in charge of government. Successful sue of the Single Executive Image may allow the president to get things done. A President who may use the Single Executive Image to persuade the public, the Congress, and the press that presidential goals are the right goals. Yet a president can meet the responsibilities of the Single Executive Image-problem solving, crisis management, and even public leadership-
only by assigning them to the presidential institution. The image places demands on the president to solve our pressing national and international problems, uphold national values, and convince the public that “his” solutions are the best. He is responsible for setting the direction of the country. The demands are so great that a president alone cannot meet the test. To match the image, a president is required to divest authority to an elaborate diverse institution. The irony of the modern American presidency is that the more the president uses the Single Executive Image to convince the public that he is doing the job, the more he needs to grow the Institutional Presidency to do that job. The more he grows the Institutional Presidency the more he dissipates his power and accentuates the power of others. The president loses control at the same time he is becoming responsible for more. He becomes, at length, a smaller part of the presidency. 42. Given the explanation in the paragraph above, what is the contradiction of the modern American Presidency? The president doesn’t have the power
, compared to others. This brings us to perhaps the most important part of the story. To understand how government works we must think about all parts of the policy making process and understand the full complexity of government over time. Every Four Years, Americans go out and vote for their new president. With the inauguration of a new president, they expect things to change because the Single Executive Image shapes their expectations. Yet more often than not, most things stay the same and citizens become more disillusioned. Over the past 4 decades Americans have continued to lose confidence in the ability of government to solve the problems that afflict the nation and become more disillusioned about the functioning of the political system. This chart looks at how much confidence citizens have in government’s institutions. Institution
% Great deal/ Quite a lot
%Very Little/None
Difference
U.S. Supreme Court (June 2021)
36
22
+14
(June 1975)
49
16
+33
The Presidency
(June 2021)
38
33
+5
(June 1975)
52
14
+38
Congress (June 2021)
12
51
-39
(June 1975)
42
11
+31
In looking at the chart, how much has confidence (Great Deal/Quite A lot) in the each of the three branches dropped since 1975? 43. Congress? __42_____% 44. The President? __52____% 45. The Supreme Court? ____49___% As the data shows, we don’t have much confidence in the ability in the branches of government to deal with the problems that are facing us, especially the democratic ones. In large part this is because we are consumed by the Single Executive Image (quite understandably) and we fail to understand the way in which the broader government operates. The key to understanding the functioning of the American government is to first remember what the framers envisioned. And what Ben Sasse reiterated. They saw government as “Congressional Government.” Congress, not the presidency was to be the center of our politics. It was the place where decisions, about what our society would look like and how resources would be distributed, would be made. The President’s job was to carry out the congressional decisions. But what has happened? Congresspeople have become more concerned about their own reelections and thus seek to avoid those decisions. Most of those decisions they have delegated to the departments and agencies in the executive branch. In addition, the rise of the Single Executive Image has placed responsibilities on the President to do more, but to do more requires a bigger Institutional Presidency which reduces the influence of the man-The President. Finally, fundamental changes in the nature of the federal bureaucracy with a professional civil service (Pendleton Act) coupled vast swaths of power being given to unelected bureaucrats to administer and design programs for which Congress no longer wants responsibility has fundamentally altered how American government works. These bureaucrats are responsible to the president but in reality, they and Congress, know that the president is a short-term occupant of a complex office, while they are there for the long haul. Relationships develop between members of Congress on Standing committees which deal with a particular area of legislation and the bureaucratic counterparts who implement the policies and are granted authority to make rules by congress. 46. What does your Textbook say is the Iron Triangle? The policy-making relationship among the congressional committees, the bureaucracy, and interest groups.