7. The presidency: the powers of the president I. According to the Constitution II. According to Congressional law III. According to court decisions and precedents IV. Political authority

Jimmy Carter: “When things go bad, you get entirely too much blame Jimmy Carter: “When things go bad, you get entirely too much blame. And I have to admit that when things go good, you get entirely too much credit.”

The White House: 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue

I. According to the Constitution -Article II -“take care clause” -John Adams on being VP: “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived” -John Nance Garner: “not worth a bucket of spit” -Walter Mondale: a job “characterized by ambiguity, disappointment, and even antagonism” -The NY Republican machine thinking of ways to get rid of Teddy Roosevelt: “promote” him to “the most dignified and harmless position in the gift of his country”: the vice-presidency -T. Roosevelt: the vice-presidency “ought to be abolished”

John Adams: “I am nothing, but I may be everything” LBJ: “a heartbeat away” from the presidency

2574 vetoes since 1789 commander in chief War Powers Act 1973 power to pardon treaty-making authority (chief diplomat) nominations and appointments (Obama: 1,640; see https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/nominations-and-appointments) recess appointments messages and recommendations to Congress impeachment

II. According to Congressional law -executive agreements

III. According to court decisions and precedents -executive orders -executive privilege

T. Roosevelt in 1905: “I am certainly willing to accept responsibility to establish precedents which successors may follow.” Tocqueville: “It is chiefly in its foreign relations that the executive power of a nation finds occasion to exert its skill and its strength.”

court rulings (e.g. Curtiss-Wright 1936)

IV. Political authority - “political capital” -an adviser to LBJ: “The presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn’t to expend it on this.” -the Boston Journal about Taft: “If he allows a bill to come from conference which disappoints the country, he will have forfeited a large share of the stock of popular confidence with which he was invested when he became president.” -standard advice given to presidents: “hit the ground running”

-Madison: “War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.” -a top official in the Bush administration: “We’re going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop.” -T. Roosevelt: held to what he called the “Jackson-Lincoln theory of the presidency; that is, that occasionally great national crises arise which call for immediate and vigorous executive action, and that in such cases it is the duty of the Pdt to act upon the theory that he is the steward of the people, and that the proper attitude for him to take is that he is bound to assume that he has the legal right to do whatever the needs of the people demand, unless the Constitution or the laws explicitly forbid him to do it.” -“bully pulpit” (T. Roosevelt): opinion leadership