1. Constituents and Conflicts
The national electorate chooses the president that they believe will carry out duties that will be in the best interest of the nation.
Voters in states elect members to congress who they believe will improve their own individual state.
The president looks out more for the interest of a nation as a whole, and members in congress look out for a narrower interest of their own state.
Because both branches look out for different interests, conflicts often occur on the issue of public policy

2. Checks and Balances
Checks and Balances is a system in which the different branches of government can balance each other so that one branch does not gain too much power.
The President can veto a bill that congress has created
Congress can amend or override the veto so the bill becomes a law
Historian James MacGregor argues that the system is “designed for deadlock and inaction” and that it is really “President versus Congress” in our government.

3. Party Politics
President Obama’s election along with a Democratic majority in Congress turned over a new leaf for the first time in many years
Bi-partisan (two parties) government causes conflict when Congress is one party and the President is another
“gridlock”

4. Organization as a Cause of Conflict
Organizational procedures like the Senate’s unlimited debate rule allow legislation to be slowed or even stopped
Committee system can influence the passing of bills because of the leaders’ power. They can be used as a weapon against President.
Committees can delay, revise, and defeat bills.

5. Different Political Timetables
The President and Congress have different political timetables.
Presidents have 3 years for their agendas and 1 year to run for reelection.
Representatives have 2 years
Senators have 6 years

6. Struggle For Power
Congress and the President are in a constant fight for power.
Which branch will dominate in a period depends on political issues, political savvy of congressional leaders and popularity of the president.
Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, and F.D.R. challenged congressional supremacy, deal with changing social, political, and economic conditions.

7. Curbing Emergency Powers
Emergency presidential powers include declaring martial law, seizing property, controlling transportation + communications

8. Examples Roosevelt during Depression + WWII
1933 Congress empowered him to close nation’s banks
After Pearl Harbor bombed Roosevelt was given broader control over the economy
President Truman (1950) and President Nixon (1970’s) exercised presidential authority

9. Acts
National Emergencies Act Ended the decades-long state of emergency and set down procedures for how and when a state of emergency exists

10. Controlling Budget Powers
Presidents have assumed more responsibility for planning the national budget, the yearly financial plan for the national government.
To increase it’s role in budgeting, Congress passed the congressional Budget and Impound Control Act in The act established a permanent budget committee for each house; and it set up the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to provide financial expertise for Congress, and it limited the President’s ability to impound funds.
Impoundment is the president’s refusal to spend money Congress has voted for a program. This law requires the president to spend appropriated funds unless Congress agreed with the president that the monies be impounded.

11. Legislative and Line-Item Vetoes
The legislative veto was used most of the time in the 1970’s when congress was feeling that the executive branch had grown too powerful.
In 1996, Republicans in Congress passed a bill authorizing the veto of spending items and certain tax breaks.
In early 1997, Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act. It includes if Congress could get a two-thirds vote from both the House and the Senate, it could put the line items back into a bill.
In the year 1998, challenges to the Line Item Veto Act reached the Supreme Court, which struck it down, saying that it circumvented the legislative procedures set out in Article 1 of the constitution.