Presidency 1: Content

What is congressional productivity?

The number of laws Congress has passed over time and considering whether a law is significant or not

What are challenges for legislating?

• Influence vs interests

• Information

• Compliance

What is influence vs interests (legislative challenge)?

MCs only have one vote but need to get bills passed

What’s information (legislative challenge)?

• MCs don’t vote for outcomes, they vote for instruments that are meant to achieve them

• MCs are usually generalists, not specialists

What’s compliance (legislative challenge)?

MCs need judges, executives, and bureaucrats to implement

What’s the Senate’s role in nominations?

Advice and Consent on treaties and appointments

What’s the impeachment clause in the Constitution?

The president, VP, and all civil officers can be removed for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

What is required for a conviction in an impeachment trial?

A supermajority vote.

What are the main types of checks and balances in the U.S. government?

Legislative over Executive, Executive over Legislative, and Legislative over Judicial.

What does the Median Voter Theorem suggest about legislative decisions?

The most preferred point of the group's median can defeat any other point in a majority vote.

What are the different types of polarization?

Policy, ideological, partisan, and elite

What’s policy polarization?

Extreme views become more common over time

What’s ideological polarization?

Liberal and conservative ideologies become more common relative to the center

What’s partisan polarization?

Polarization organized around parties

What’s elite polarization?

Elite in reference to political elites, asymmetric

What’s the impossible presidency?

The president is too powerful

What’s the imperial presidency?

The president isn’t powerful enough

What’s the presidential paradox?

The president is both too powerful and not powerful enough

What are the expressed powers of the presidency?

Military, judicial, diplomatic, executive, legislative

What are the military expressed powers?

• Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy and of the militia of the several states

• Highest military authority

• Head of intelligence network

• Domestic

What are the judicial expressed powers?

• Reprieves

• Pardons

• Amnesties

What are reprieves?

Postponement of punishment

What are pardons?

Legal forgiveness of a crime

What are amnesties?

Usually granted to a group of people, promise of non-persecution

What are diplomatic expressed powers?

• Head of State: Appoint and receive ambassadors

• Make treaties (with Advice and Consent of the Senate)

What are the executive expressed powers?

• President sees that all laws are faithfully executed

• President appoints, removes, and supervises executive officers

• Appointments

• Theory of Unitary Executive

What’s the theory of unitary executive?

Presidents assert full control over the bureaucracy

What does the theory of the unitary executive imply?

Congress has little control over the bureaucracy, which is disputed by Congress and weakens separation of powers

What’s Neustadt’s core argument?

Neustadt argues that presidential power is fundamentally the ability to persuade others to act in ways that align with their own perceived interests.

What does Neustadt claim about the president?

Because institutions share powers, the president must bargain rather than command.

What does Neustadt claim the sources of presidential advantage are?

• Institutional status

• Ongoing relationships

• Proximity effect