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MODULE 2

Objectives:
Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:

  1. Explain the Electoral College and the ways it can produce victory by national popular vote losers. 
  2. Explain key sources of presidential power, and the reasons those have expanded over time. 
  3. Identify key organizations that help the president
  4. Create strategies in the veto game.
  5. Identify and explain the War Powers Resolution
  6. Create strategies for unilateral presidential action using executive orders, executive agreements, war powers and other tools to bypass Congress.

RELEVANCE: 
The president is the most visible and powerful individual in the American political system. It is vital that any student of American Government understand the power and role of the president.  

SUMMARY: 
The Framers’ ambivalence toward executive power has created a “gray area” in which the strength of the presidency is primarily determined by the individual skills of presidents and the support of the public. By using the powers of their office to the max, presidents attempt to shape public policy. In foreign policy, in particular, Presidents have succeeded at obtaining near dominance. But in many areas Congress and the Courts continue to constrain the President, sometimes pushing back successfully against efforts by Presidents to change the policy status quo. Harry S. Truman (President from 1945 to 1953) reflected that “Being President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.” And Theodore Roosevelt once told his relative Franklin (fists clenched) “Sometimes I wish I could be President and Congress too.” With enormous powers come even more enormous expectations. Presidents often struggle to fulfil those expectations in the face of a separation of powers system that limits presidential options, and their popularity often suffers as a result.  

OVERVIEW: In this topic we will address a series of puzzles about the presidency. First, how can someone when the presidency while winning fewer votes than some other candidate? The answer here will lie in understanding the workings of the Electoral College. Second, how presidents can (and cannot) use the veto to influence policy outcomes. Third, how the veto combined with presidential unilateral actions provides the president with substantial scope for action without involving Congress. And finally, why and how did the power of presidents increase substantially in the 20th century only to encounter substantial and consequential push-back from Congress and the Courts?


INSULATING THE PRESIDENT FROM POPULAR CONTROL?

Mobirise

 The framers of the Constitution sought to remove the president from direct popular control through an indirect selection mechanism. The Electoral College was to be the primary mechanism for choosing the president, its members selected by the various states to exercise informed (and elite) judgment concerning the selection of the president.

The argument that the electoral college would exercise independent judgment has largely proven to be incorrect, as the electors are chosen by the party of the state election winner, and they are typically party loyalists who are highly resistant to arguments that they do anything other than vote for the party.

But the Electoral College as a mechanism for aggregating votes remains important and influential today. For example in in both 2000 and 2016 the Electoral College process led to the selection of a candidate who won fewer votes nationwide. My goal in this module is to help you understand how the Electoral College operates, and why it can produce outcomes of this sort. I’ll also suggest a few thoughts concerning proposals for reform and the advantages and disadvantages of changing the way presidents are chosen. 

ASSIGNMENTS QUIZ GO TO PAGE 2

© Copyright 2019 EMH - All Rights Reserved