Transcription
Hey everybody. Welcome back. Presidents are certainly a lot more powerful today. So Hulk smash that like button and let's see why. [Music]
We know that the framers were super suspicious of giving any one person too much power, and so they establish a president that had relatively few powers he could exercise on his own. And yet, the Constitution gave that power to a single person. That actually might seem a little bit weird when you think about it.
In Federalist number 70, Alexander Hamilton argued in favor of a unitary executive, meaning having a single person as president, saying that this would allow the president to act quickly in moments of crisis or war. Check out my Federalist number 70 video for a deep dive. But notice that Hamilton says that having a strong president is essential to the protection of the country against foreign attacks, to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property, and the security of liberty. We can see Hamilton setting the table here for an expansion of Presidential Power, but not everybody agrees that presidents should be so powerful.
And so, down to this day, there are debates over the proper role of the president. Some argue for a more limited role, all emphasizing that the Constitution doesn't give the president policy-making power; rather, it just empowers him or her to enforce and to administer laws passed by Congress. And these limits are important because they support the principle of separation of powers, checks and balances, and having a limited government. Others argue for a more expansive role, and they point out Hamilton's argument in Federalist number 70 about the president being able to act quickly in a crisis. They also argue that the president is the only position elected by the entire nation, so she better reflects the will of the people and tends to be the person the country looks to and expects to take the lead and to take action. So they shouldn't just be prevented from doing that just because Congress doesn't want to play nice with the president.
Foreign policy provides us a great example of this debate over Presidential Power. In fact, the Constitution basically invites this debate by granting the president the power as commander-in-chief but giving Congress the power to declare war. You've learned both of those things separately, but thinking about them together, we get a great example of separation of powers in perhaps the most consequential decision people in government can make: to go to war. The idea was straightforward: allow Congress to decide if and when the nation would go to war and then put the president in charge of fighting that war. But the fact is that, over the last hundred plus years, that separation of power hasn't meant all that much. The president has a number of advantages when it comes to making foreign policy such that Congress typically defers to his judgment, for better or more often for worse. So foreign policy is the one policy area that presidents perhaps actually are as powerful as the public thinks. Presidential advantages include that he nominates ambassadors, negotiates treaties and executive agreements with leaders of other nations, makes executive orders directing the military, and the defense, diplomatic, and intelligence services all report directly to the president.
Congress isn't without power though. In addition to their ability to declare war, they have the power of the purse, and foreign adventures—I mean wars—cost a lot of money. So their decisions about funding the armed services can impact a president's ability to accomplish his foreign policy goals. Additionally, congressional oversight allows Congress to hold investigations, and this can be used to check the president and his ability to make war as well.
Speaking of congressional oversight, presidents often claim that executive privilege shields them from congressional investigations and that they don't have to cooperate with such investigations and that they and members of the executive branch can resist Congressional subpoenas to testify. In U.S. versus Nixon, the Supreme Court held that presidents can claim executive privilege, but it's not an absolute privilege; it's effectively limited to issues of National Security in foreign policy. Congress can also pass legislation to try to restrict the president's ability to make war. For example, in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution after the Vietnam War stretched on for more than a decade. This attempted to restrict the ability of presidents to unilaterally fight wars without Congressional approval. It required presidents to inform Congress of military action and to receive Congressional approval for that military action lasting more than 60 days. In practice, it hasn't had much real impact because even Congress probably realizes the law is an unconstitutional violation of the president's role as commander-in-chief.
Another debate over separation of powers came from maybe a surprising policy. In 1996, Congress gave the president the power to use a line-item veto. This allowed the president to veto only parts of a bill, basically crossing out the parts he disagreed with and signing the rest into law. Many governors have this power, and it's seen as a useful way to limit wasteful government spending. However, less than two years later, in Clinton versus New York, the Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto to be an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers. Presidents can sign or veto legislation; they can't add to it and revise it—that's Congress's job.
And in an attempt to limit Presidential Power following FDR's presidency, the 22nd Amendment was ratified, which made the two-term limit for presidents official. But again, the trend has been the tremendous growth in Presidential Power as most of the country looks to the president as the chief policy maker in the nation.
Let's shift gears and get to topic 2.7: Presidential Communication. Teddy Roosevelt once said that the presidency is a bully pulpit, meaning that this position of authority allows the president to speak out on any issue and for what he says to be notable and newsworthy. So he can draw attention to issues just by talking about them. For example, when Obama chose to highlight inequalities in the criminal justice system to bring attention to the need for systemic reform. Trump also used the bully pulpit for Criminal Justice Reform, teaming up with Kim Kardashian to gain support for prison reform and to release some non-violent inmates who were serving long sentences.
Similarly, the State of the Union Address is delivered annually by the president to Congress. It's a nationally televised speech in which the president has the eyes and attention of the whole nation and attempts to gain support for his agenda, to put pressure on Congress to work with him on his policy goals. A cynic might say that it's an hour-long infomercial for the president, but the fact is that if the president is successful in getting public support for his initiatives, it will put pressure on members of Congress to support them as well.
And in the last decade or so, the rise of social media and new technologies has made it easy for presidents to communicate quickly and directly with the public. He doesn't need to rely on traditional media outlets and can instead go right to the people and make his opinion known. Oh, Obama was considered the first social media president with his use of Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. Yes, Myspace—what a time to be alive. Donald Trump obviously built on Obama's social media proficiency and took it to a whole nother level, becoming basically the Twitter president. But again, think how this allowed him to communicate directly with the public, especially since one of his key contentions was that the media was against him. So he often cut out the middleman and went straight to his followers. Of course, the news media would then breathlessly report whatever he had tweeted, and that's actually a huge part of all of this agenda-setting. We'll talk more about this in unit 5, but basically, agenda-setting is the process of how a certain topic makes its way to the Congressional agenda, and it goes like this: the media reports on something a bunch, so then it becomes more important to the public, and they may demand that policy makers take action, and the topic gets placed on the Congressional agenda. What's happening here is that the president, through the bully pulpit, the State of the Union Address, and social media, is heavily influencing that first step of what gets reported, increasing his influence over policy-making, even though ultimately Congress makes legislation.
All right, well that's it for the presidency. Next up, the Judiciary. Until next time, this has been a Money Production. Thanks again for watching. Show me some love and hit that like button. Make sure you subscribe, like, and check out the ultimate review packet. I mean, it has everything you need to kill it on AP Gov, so click the link if you think it might help, and I will see you in the next video.