27 The President: What are the powers, structure and function of the executive b
27 The President: What are the powers, structure and function of the executive branch?
Learning Objectives
- Explain the reason for the design of the executive branch and its plausible alternatives
- Analyze the way presidents have expanded presidential power and why
- Identify the limitations on a president’s power
- Explain how incoming and outgoing presidents peacefully transfer power
- Describe how new presidents fill positions in the executive branch
- Discuss how incoming presidents use their early popularity to advance larger policy solutions
- Identify the power presidents have to effect change without congressional cooperation
- Analyze how different circumstances influence the way presidents use unilateral authority
- Explain how presidents persuade others in the political system to support their initiatives
Since its invention at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the presidential office has gradually become more powerful, giving the president more leadership options at home and abroad. The chief executive’s role has evolved as presidents have confronted challenges in domestic and foreign policy in war and peace, and with the overall rise of the federal government’s power.
Why do we need a chief executive?
The Articles of Confederation did not provide for an executive branch, although they did use the term “president” to designate the presiding officer of the Confederation Congress, who also handled other administrative duties.[1] The presidency was proposed early in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia by Virginia’s Edmund Randolph, as part of James Madison’s proposal for a federal government, which became known as the Virginia Plan.
Madison offered a rather sketchy outline of the executive branch, leaving unspecified whether what he termed the “national executive” would be an individual or a set of people. He proposed that Congress select the executive, whose powers and authority and even service term length were left largely undefined. He also proposed a “council of revision” consisting of the national executive and members of the national judiciary, which would review laws passed by the legislature and have the power of veto.[2]
Early deliberations agreed that the executive would be a single person, elected for a single term of seven years by the legislature, empowered to veto legislation, and subject to impeachment and removal by the legislature. William Paterson proposed an alternate model, typically referred to as the small-state or New Jersey Plan. This plan called for merely amending the Articles of Confederation to create an executive branch comprised of a committee elected by a unicameral Congress for a single term. This executive committee would be particularly weak because it could be removed from power at any point if a majority of state governors desired. Far more extreme was Alexander Hamilton’s suggestion that the executive power be entrusted to a single individual. This individual would be chosen by elect