Political System of United

States
USA Congress
 Congress is a bicameral legislature, comprising the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both are law-making
chambers directly elected by the people. They have broadly equal powers, making the Senate the most powerful upper
house in the world.
 Senate acts as a check on behalf of the states upon the House of Representatives which is elected on the basis of
population. The allotment of two senators to each state, irrespective of population, ensures that the voice of the states in
all areas of the country is clearly expressed. Nevada with less than half a million inhabitants has as much representation
as New York State with approaching 20m.
 With only a very few other exceptions, greater power resided on Capitol Hill than in the White House right down to 1933.
Since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Americans have become used to a more assertive presidency. His
assumption of office led to a massive extension of federal power as he sought to implement his New Deal proposals to lift
the USA out of economic depression. (In the words of one writer, Gary Wasserman23,presidents have walked a thin line
between too much and too little power in the White House).

Three distinctive Features of the Constitution of the USA:

 Federalism:
The 1787 convention in Philadelphia was called because its members felt that the new nation needed a much
stronger national government than the Articles of Confederation provided, but the representatives from the small
states refused to join any national government that did not preserve most of their established powers. The
framers broke the resulting stalemate by dividing power between the national and the state governments and
gave each state equal representation in the national Senate. Only thus could the large and small states agree on a
new constitution. Federalism has been widely praised as one of the greatest American contributions to the art of
government. A number of nations have adopted it as a way of enabling different regions with sharply different
cultures and interests to join together as one nation.
The American federal system divides government power in the following principal ways:
1) Powers specifically assigned to the federal government, such as the power to declare war, make treaties with
foreign nations, coin money, and regulate commerce between the states.
2) Powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment. The main powers in this category are those over
education, marriage and divorce, intrastate commerce, and regulation of motor vehicles.
3) Powers that can be exercised by both the federal government and the states, such as imposing taxes and
defining and punishing crimes.
4) Powers forbidden to the federal government, mainly those in the first eight amendments, such as abridging
freedom of speech, press, and religion, and various guarantees of fair trials for persons accused of crimes.
5) Powers forbidden to the state governments. Some of these are in the body of the Constitution, but the main
ones are the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirements that no state shall “abridge the privileges or immunities
of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law; nor Deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Supreme Court of the United States, an organ of the federal government and not of the state governments, that
decides which acts of the federal government and the state governments are within their respective powers.
 Separation of Powers:
The Constitution of the United States specifically vests the legislative power in Congress (Article I), the executive
power in the president (Article II), and the judicial power in the federal courts, headed by the
Suprem.
The three branches are separated in several ways:
1) Article I, Section 6: “No Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either
House during his Continuance in Office.” This provision means that each branch is operated by persons
entirely distinct from those operating the other two branches. Thus, for example, when Senator John Kerry
was appointed secretary of state in 2013, he had to resign his seat in the Senate before he could take up his
new post.
The persons heading each branch of the U.S. government are selected by different procedures for different terms.
Members of the House of
2) Representatives are elected directly by the voters for two-year terms, with no limit on the number of terms
they can serve. Members of the Senate are elected directly by the voters for six-year terms, without term
limits, and their terms are staggered so that one-third of the Senate comes up for election or reelection
Every 2 years. The president is elected indirectly by the electoral college (which is selected by direct popular
election) for a four-year term and is limited to two full elected terms. All federal judges, including the members of
the Supreme Court, are appointed by the president with the approval of a majority of the Senate, and they hold
office until death, resignation, or removal by Congress.
3) The other main devices ensuring the separation of powers are the checks and balances by which each branch
can keep the other two branches from invading its constitutional powers. For example, the Senate can
disapprove top-level presidential appointments and refuse to ratify treaties. The two chambers of Congress
acting together can impeach, convict, and remove the president or federal judges from office. They can (and
often do) deny the president the legislation, appropriations, and taxes he requests. The president, in turn,
can veto any act of Congress, and the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of both chambers to override
the veto. The president also makes the initial appointments of all federal judges. Presidents have normally
nominated judges who are likely to agree with their political philosophies and policy preferences, but once
appointed and confirmed, judges rule without political supervision.m,

 Judicial Review:
 As Chief Justice Hughes once stated: ‘We are under the Constitution, but
the Constitution is what the judges say it is.’
 The question of how to use its judicial power has long exercised the Court, and different opinions have been held
by those who preside over it. Some have urged an activist Court that enhances individual rights. They believe that
the Court should be a key player in shaping policy, an active partner working alongside the other branches of
government. Such a conception means that the justices move beyond acting as umpires in the political game, and
become creative participants. Chief Justice Earl Warren was an exponent of the philosophy. His
court was known for a series of liberal judgements on matters ranging from school
desegregation to the rights of criminals. Decisions were made which boldly and broadly
changed national policy.
 Rulings in one age can be overturned by judgements delivered at another time. This was true of
segregation. ‘Separate but equal’ was acceptable in 1896 in the Plessey v. Ferguson case, but by 1954
it was deemed ‘inherently unequal’.
Judicial review can be defined as the power of a court to render a legislative or executive act null and void on the
ground of unconstitutionality. All American courts, including the lower federal courts and all levels of the state
courts, exercise this power on occasion. But the final word on all issues involving an interpretation of the national
Constitution (which, as we have seen, is “the supreme law of the land’’ belongs to the U.S. Supreme Court. The
Supreme Court can declare any act of the president or Congress null and void on the ground that it violates the
Constitution. Such a decision can be overturned only by a constitutional amendment or by the Court, usually with
new members, changing its mind. Although every democracy has to determine who has the final word on what its
constitution allows and prohibits, the United States is one of the few democracies in which that power is given to
the top appellate court of the regular court system. Some countries, such as Italy, give the final word to special
tribunals rather than to bodies in their regular court systems, while in others (such as Mexico and Switzerland), the
power includes only the “federal umpire” power, and not the power to override decisions of the national executive
and legislature. Thus, judicial review is a prominent but not exclusive feature of the American constitutional
system. Because of the important authorities granted to the Supreme Court by the American Constitution, the
Court plays an active role in shaping policies that affect the everyday lives of Americans. Abortion rights are an
issue of utmost importance both to right-to-life and to pro-choice activists, and ever since the Court’s 1973 Roe v.
Wade decision created federal protections for basic abortion rights, the drive to overturn or uphold this decision
has motivated much political participation. The landmark decision applied a constitutional right to privacy to
abortion rights, while those advocating a right to life have won some restrictions through Congress and the
Supreme Court on lateterm abortion practices. This has not been the only major debate decided by the Supreme
Court in recent years. In the 2010 session alone, the Court issued landmark opinions granting corporations the
right to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections, broadening Second Amendment protections by casting
the constitutionality of state and local gun control laws into doubt, and narrowing the rights of criminal
defendants. It was only by a narrow majority that the Supreme Court in 2012 upheld the Affordable Care Act
(President Obama’s universal health care law), and the decision that upheld it also set great constraints on the
power of Congress and presidents to regulate interstate commerce in the future. With the Court’s impact looming
so large, and with presidents able to reshape the Court when they nominate new members to replace departing
justices, the direction of the judicial branch becomes an important part of presidential elections in America.

THE PRESIDENCY
Constitutional Powers of the Presidency:
 Power to execute the law: The Constitution bestows on the president executive power and authority over government. (Article II,
Section 1, and Article II, Section 3).
 Power of military authority: The Constitution defers authority over the nation’s military to the president. (Article II, Section 2)
 Power to pardon: The Constitution gives the president power to pardon or grant reprieves. (Article II, Section 2)
 Power of diplomacy: The president is given considerable authority in dealing with the nation’s foreign relations. The Constitution
enables the president to meet with foreign ambassadors and to make treaties. (Article II, Section 3, and Article II, Section 2)
 Power to veto legislation: The Constitution gives the president some legislative authority through veto power. After Congress passes
a bill, the president can veto it in an attempt to keep it from becoming law. However, Congress can overturn the veto when there is
supermajority congressional support for the bill. (Article I, Section 7)
 Power of appointment: The president is given the power to nominate and appoint, with the Senate’s advice and consent, various
political officers, including members of the Supreme Court. (Article II, Section 2)
 Power to wage war: The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. However, presidents have often engaged in military
action without such congressional declaration. The president derives authority to take such unilateral military action and effectively
“wage war” from the power implied by the title “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy.” Some argue that such action is an
abuse of presidential power.
 Power over domestic security: Does the president have unilateral authority to dispatch federal troops to address domestic threats?
Congress is given explicit constitutional authority to call forth the militia in response to insurrection and invasion. However, the
president has called forth the National Guard in response to national emergencies such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
 Power to issue executive agreements: To avoid the need to obtain Senate approval for treaties, presidents have adopted the use of
executive agreements. These agreements, though not addressed in the Constitution, have the effect of a treaty without requiring
Senate approval.
 Executive privilege: Past presidents have maintained that, given the sensitive nature of information acquired by the executive, the
office holds inherent privacy privileges. Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama have evoked such executive privilege
to keep documents and other information confidential despite congressional protests.
Shaping the Modern Presidency
 Nineteenth-Century Changes
The President as the Voice of the People Jackson served two terms as president, from 1829 to 1837, and profoundly changed the
office. First, more than any previous president, he continually justified his actions as following the people’s will. He considered
himself the people’ s legitimate representative in opposition to the economically and politically well connected, and especially
against Congress, which he berated as a bastion of special interests. Throughout his administration, he maintained that the
presidency was equal to Congress and not subordinate to it. Jackson believed that only the president, as a single person representing
the people, could overcome the delay and deadlock caused by disagreements among rival groups within Congress and among the
states. In our contemporary terminology, he viewed himself as a solver of collective dilemmas.
The Spoils System and Partisan Goals Jackson also created the spoils system, which lasted in full for 50 y ears and, in some r
espects, survives to this da y. Under the spoils system, loyal partisans who support the president during campaigns for office gain
government jobs after the elections. Jackson campaigned for the presidency by harshly criticizing the federal bureaucracy and
promising to replace federal employees on a regular basis. The spoils system gave Jackson and subsequent nineteenth-century
presidents many opportunities to fill government jobs with party supporters. Van Buren, Jackson’s second-term vice pr esident, won
the pr esidency in 1836 and used the spoils system to cr eate mass par ties. Following Jackson’s lead, presidential candidates like Van
Buren offered federal jobs to supporters if elected. The spoils system helped presidents carry out their policies within the
bureaucracy, but it also helped them solidify the loyalties of new voters toward the party in office. From this point forward,
presidents routinely provided government jobs to people who supported them and their party. Van Buren’s genius was to exploit
and build on the rapid expansion of voting rights that occurred in this era. Candidates for president and the presidents themselves
needed to mobilize large n umbers of voters to win mass elections and accomplish what they wanted to in office. Van Buren saw
that the way to mobilize large n umbers of v oters was to link local, state, and national elec tions around a common partisan effort.
The President as Military leader Lincoln’s actions during the Civil War set key precedents for how executive power over the militia
can solve the deepest of collective dilemmas. Lincoln faced the most serious crisis in American history when the souther n states
seceded fr om the Union in 1860–61 and declar ed themselves a separate country, the Confederate States of America. In order to
defeat the souther n rebels and reunite the countr y, he needed to in vade the South and pr otect the Nor th. He w as concerned not
only about the Con federate army invading the Nor th and captur ing Washington, D.C., but also about southern infiltration and
sabotage. He had to deal with nor thern states that were reluctant to send troops, money, and matériel for the war. There was
strong resistance to the draft in the North, including violent draft riots. In other words, the northern states’ leaders and populations
faced deep collective-action problems. They all wanted to defeat the South or end the war or both, yet it was costly to contribute to
the effort and there were incentives to free ride. Lincoln responded forcefully to overcome these pr oblems. With the help of allies in
Cong ress, he created what were at the time massi ve government bureaucracies to supply the ar my with troops, materials, food,
and transpor tation and communication networks. When state governments in the Nor th resisted his calls for mor e draftees to fight
the w ar, he forced their hand by threatening arrests and armed intervention. And he went beyond the provisions of the
Constitution in temporarily suspending the writ of habeas corpus, allowing federal troops and local officials to ar rest people
suspected of tr eason and hold them indefinitely without charge. In essence, he enforced the cooperation of people he needed to
contribute to costly collective efforts. Lincoln often faced a recalcitrant Congress, stubborn state leaders, and many critics within his
own party and the army. He pushed on with the w ar effort, even when some of his o wn advisers urged him to settle with the South
and end the conflict. Institutionally, he pushed the boundaries of presidential power during the Civil War by exploiting ambiguities in
the Constitution (which we will discuss in the next section). He expanded the role of commander in chief far beyond what previous
presidents had done, and made policy decisions about the war within his administration and sometimes without full cong ressional
approval. Through Lincoln’s efforts, and with the help of political allies who ag reed with his political goals (though not necessarily
with his institutional methods), the size of the national government and especially the powers of the president grew substantially
during the Civil War era. In the years since Lincoln’s presidency, Congress and the courts have given presidents more leeway to
conduct foreign policy and make war than was likely intended by the Founders. Although many of the b ureaucracies Lincoln cr
eated to help pr osecute the war were abolished after its conclusion, as we saw in Chapter 3, the size of the national government—
in terms of both spending and per sonnel—remained larger after the war than before it. As this example shows, crises call for quick
responses that often require coordination among, and even coercion of, diverse interests and political g roups. After the crisis
passes, there is often disag reement over whether to r eturn to a weaker presidency or to maintain the new institutionalized powers
of the executive office. Thus, we see a per sistent dynamic in American political history: an emergency leads fir st to a str onger
presidency and then to ongoing debates and political conflicts over continuing or rescinding presidential power. As illustrated by the
cases of Lincoln in the Ci vil War and Obama with the DREAM Act, the presidency has grown stronger largely as a consequence of
individual presidents with enough political support from the other branches to solve collective dilemmas.
Through the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-First
Developing the Populist Presidency In the tw entieth centur y, the pr esidency became m uch mor e populist. Woodrow Wilson,
who ser ved two terms from 1913 to 1921, went beyond any previous president in his effort to reach the average man and woman
“in the street.” In part, this was because automobiles and improved roads gave him technological advantages over his predecessors.
Moreover, Wilson’s philosophy of democratic governance emphasized the value of direct contact between the president as leader
and the people the pr esident serves. He also ga ve many speeches in Washington trying to woo the press and interest groups in his
favor over political opponents. President Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980, raised this art to a new level. A former movie
star, he had a warm smile and telegenic looks that endeared him to people and mobilized supporters. Reagan’s ability to use his
personal popularity to win over the general public, who would then pressure their members of Congress to follow his lead, is
legendary. During one of his televised addresses to the country in 1981 about his proposed budget, which was stalled in Congress,
he could not have been more explicit: “I urge you again to contact your senators and congressmen. Tell them of your support for this
bipartisan proposal. Tell them you believe this is an unequaled oppor tunity to help return America to prosperity and make
government again the servant of the people.”6 Reagan continually battered congressional opponents b y encouraging constituents
to inundate them with letters. Even after he had been in office for 5 years, one Democratic member of Congress admitted that
“we’re still a bit afraid of him’’. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has enthusiastically embraced social media to interact with the
public and promote his legislative priorities. Obama communicates directly with nearly tens of millions of follo wers on Facebook
and on Twitter. As part of his presidential campaign for re-election, his team developed its own social network,
MyBarackObama.com. This strategy allowed the president direct contact to his supporters, while also giving him access to
information about his supporters to be used in the r eelection campaign.
Enhancing Presidential Power through Military and Economic Means
Three men in the office in the early tw entieth century are noteworthy for changing the natur e of pr esidential power: Theodore
Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roose velt (FDR). Repub lican Theodore Roosevelt served as president from 1901
to 1909. He created a personality cult around the office that had ne ver before existed. An extraordinarily popular president, he was
known as much for his larger-than-life personality as for his policies. “Teddy” Roosevelt projected an energetic, athletic, can-do spirit
with the help of an increasingly aggressive press corps who covered his daily actions and utterances in detail. Like Andrew Jackson,
he governed with the attitude that he alone represented the people.
 Roosevelt responded to collective dilemmas among various economic and political groups. The industrialization of the country
had created an urban working class that was increasingly militant and demanded a share in the nation’s wealth. It also gave rise to
enormous industrial corporations (the “trusts”) that Roosevelt considered dangerous to the countr y’s economic and social well-
being. Many people wanted to rein in these trusts, and a collective effort by various economic interests could have accomplished it.
Such action, however, would have been costly because of the tr usts’ power and ability to punish opponents. Others wanted to
counteract the increasing power of a small number of trade unions. Roosevelt responded to pressure from these constituencies by
forming regulatory agencies and using litigation as a forceful tool. For example, rather than w ait for a foot-dragg ing Congress to leg
islate against the trusts—the huge monopoly corporations that he wanted to break up into smaller companies—Roosevelt decided
to sue them directly from the president’s office. He initiated 44 lawsuits against companies in his first year in office, an
unprecedented strong-arm tactic for any branch of the national government to undertake, let alone the presidency. Institutionally,
Roosevelt took major steps to ward creating a national government bureaucracy to r egulate the acti vities of American businesses.
His executive branch increasingly regulated the railroads, oil companies, and some forestry industries. This policy expanded the role
of the national government in the economy and gave the presidency a substantial boost in power. Although Teddy Roosevelt is
credited with setting the regulatory wheels in motion, fullscale regulation of broad sectors of the economy did not come to fruition
until after his cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became president in 1933.
 Wilson advanced the populism of the office . With regard to world affairs, Wilson changed the presidency in important ways
during and after World War I. He sought to establish the American president as a major voice in international politics, on an equal
footing with the leaders of the great powers in Europe. He believed that one of his major roles following World War I was to help the
European countries resolve their internal collective dilemmas. Wilson emphasized an internationalist foreign policy and established
regular contact with his counterparts abroad. His foreign policy had broad implications for the future of the presidency. Most
presidents who followed Wilson, including those who served through the Cold War and into the 1990s, regarded maintaining the
peace in Europe, Asia, and Latin America as a prime mission.
 No president other than Washington has had a greater impact on the nature of the office than Franklin Delano Roosevelt
(known as FDR, to distinguish him from Teddy). Starting in 1932, he won four elections—more than any president before or since—
and served three full terms. (He died in 1945, about three months into his four th term.) The two signature achievements of
Roosevelt’s presidency, the New Deal and the leadership of the Allies in World War II, led to massive increases in the size, reach, and
importance of the national government. After the Wall Street crash of 1929, the national government under President Herbert
Hoover and the Republican Congress seemed unable or unwilling to respond effectively to the economic cr isis. Political leaders and
various economic interests disagreed over what the national go vernment should do. The Democrats swept into power in the 1932
elections on a wave of optimism, but they too f aced uncertainty and inter nal dissension. FDR devoted his effor ts to solving
collective dilemmas within his o wn party and across many diverse and competing interests. Within the first 100 days of taking office
in 1933, he laid the groundwork for his New Deal, a set of policies intended to boost the American economy in the face of the Great
Depression, to stabilize it once it was back on its feet, and to further regulate the activities of corporations. A byproduct of the
policies was to redistribute income in favor of retirees, widows, the disabled, and orphans. The New Deal, discussed in detail in
Chapter s 3 and 15, was a major overhaul in the way the national government operated within the American political system. It gave
the executive branch greater authority than ever before. Under FDR, many new national bureaucracies were created to regulate the
economy, with the result that the White House directed economic policies to an unprecedented degree. New Deal policies, including
Social Security and unemployment insurance, increased both the tax es the national go vernment collected from people and the
benefits people received from the national government. In the w ake of FDR’ s New Deal, the political f ate of all pr esidents—
including re-election prospects, overall popularity, and ability to get legislation passed in the Congress—has increasingly been tied to
the state of the national economy. Because the presidency now wielded so much power, the American people could legitimately
blame presidents when the economy was in trouble and reward them when times were good. As during Lincoln’s presidency, the
Roosevelt administration’s war effort also greatly expanded the size of the national government. The massive mobilization of more
than 5 million U.S. soldiers and sailors during World War II (1941–45) necessitated a huge government bureaucracy to oversee their
recruiting, training, supply, and transpor t. Unlike in the past, however, the militar y did not shrink after the war to a tiny peacetime
force, but remained large and strong. FDR’s successors, Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, carried on many of
his policies. After World War I, the United States had g radually withdrawn from European politics. By the end of World War II,
however, the country had by and large abandoned its isolationist foreign policy and become deeply involved in international affairs
on every continent. The national government spawned a huge military bureaucracy devoted to gathering intelligence, protecting
Europe (and ultimately Korea) from communist aggression, and participating in new international organizations such as the United
Nations (UN) and the Nor th Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The victory in World War II under FDR ushered in a new era of
American leadership on the world stage, which in turn raised the American president to new heights of power and influence. The
growth of the federal government spilled over into the president’s own office. FDR created a massive bureaucracy within the
executive branch devoted to helping him mak e economic and for eign policy decisions, in addition to implementing policies decided
upon by the legislative branch. Figure 6.2 shows the current bureaucracy built around the office of the president. It is important to
recognize that none of these bureaucratic institutions, other than the cabinet departments, existed before FDR took office.

Today’s Powerful Presidency

 The Veto As we saw in Chapter 5, if Congress passes a bill, the president can either sign it into law or veto it. Congress can
override a veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers. If Congress overrides the president’s veto, the bill becomes law without
presidential signature. Presidents can also exercise a pocket veto by failing to sign legislation at the end of a cong ressional session. If
Congress is not in session, then bills unsigned by the president 10 days after being passed by Congress are considered vetoed.
Congress must pass the law again in the next session to keep the bill alive. In recent decades, the pocket veto has been very rare
because Congress has learned to anticipate the president’s possible action and has paid attention to the timing of legislation to avoid
the 10-day cutoff. This does not mean the pocket veto is now unimportant. Contemporary scholars have studied how the mere
threat of the veto can convince Congress to modify a piece of legislation. So presidents may not actually need to use the veto to
achieve their goals. Presidents make so-called veto threats by publicly stating that if Cong ress passes a bill that is not to their
liking ,they will veto it. Scholars have shown that Congress tends to modify bills after presidents issue veto threats. This is a case of
an institutional device, the veto, granting the president considerable power over legislation; the president doesn’t actually need to
use it, but only to have it available for use if necessary.
 Appointments The Constitution g rants the pr esident the po wer to mak e appointments to executive departments and other b
ureaus, and to the federal cour ts. Beginning with George Washington, presidents have shaped their go vernments by appointing
people who agree with them on policy matter s. With the growth of the federal government, this prerogative has become even more
significant. Today, presidents make thousands of appointments to populate a m uch larger and more powerful national bureaucracy
that affects the w ell-being of every community in the country Most presidential appointments that require the Senate’s “advice and
consent” are routinely approved. High-profile positions, including cabinet secretaries and especially Supreme Court justices, can be
controversial, and occasionally the Senate will reject a presidential appointment. But by and large, appointment of personnel at the
top of the executive agencies and in the courts occurs as the president sees fit. Certain kinds of positions, especially
ambassadorships to foreign countries, are often handed out as rewards to people who helped the president get elected. For
example, President George W. Bush appointed David H. Wilkins, a major contributor to his 2004 campaign, as ambassador to
Canada. Similarly, President Barack Obama appointed Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team and an early
suppor ter of Obama’s candidacy in Pennsylvania, to be ambassador to Ireland. These appointments followed a long, bipartisan
tradition of handing out federal jobs to thank people and curry favor with donors and the party faithful.
 Executive Orders, Executive agreements, and Signing Statements Modern presidents also have several legal maneuvers at their
disposal to bypass Congress. An executive order is a regulation or a rule made by the president that has the force of law. In the early
years of the Republic, such orders typically dictated the manner in which the federal b ureaucracy would implement laws passed by
Congress. In more recent years, presidents have used executive orders to make major policy changes and even exercise war powers.
Examples include Harry S. Truman’s order that desegregated the armed forces, Lyndon Johnson’s order that the U .S. government
adopt affir mative action, and Bill Clinton’s order that led to the use of militar y force in Kosovo. (Technically, President Obama’s
action on immigration discussed in the opening stor y was not formally an executive order but simply a directive for an agency to
follow and did not involve formal changes in any laws or regulations.) All recent presidents have issued executive orders to avoid
waiting for legislation that might not be forthcoming from a Congress controlled by the opposition party.12 Sometimes resistance by
members of the president’s own party prompts the president to resort to an executive order. Truman desegregated the armed
forces in 1948 after bills intr oduced in Congress to do the same w ere repeatedly stymied by southern Democrats. Truman issued
his executive order in response to a bill proposed by a group of so-called Dixiecrats, which would have given soldiers a choice of
whether to serve in biracial units. Truman’s order did not offer soldiers a choice. Another reason for the use of executive orders over
the past century is that the United States has been engaged in many wars since the 1930s. Executive orders are issued frequently
during wartime because presidents do not feel they have the time to wait for congressional action. The courts generally have upheld
the r ight of presidents to issue ex ecutive orders, within limits. In two notable cases, however, federal judges ha ve ruled that the
president overstepped the bounds of executive authority and defied laws passed by Congress: Truman’s seizure of the steel mills in
1952 (discussed earlier), and Clinton’s 1996 order preventing government agencies from contracting with organizations that had
strikebreakers on their payrolls. In the latter case, the court held that Clinton’s executive order violated established law on labor
relations. Congressional legislation can overturn an executive order, although such a law must generally survive a presidential veto.
Thus, if a president is confident.
 Administrative and Financial Resources The power of the pr esidency has incr eased over time par tly as a r esult of presidents
reacting to crises, including wars, depressions, and civil unrest. One important way presidents “react” to crises is to create new
bureaucratic agencies designed to help them implement policy and mak e decisions. These agencies help coordinate government
action across various parts of the government. The growth of the federal b ureaucracy has been par ticularly dramatic in recent
years. When George Washington was president, his cabinet consisted of five people and the national government’s budget was a
mere $4 million. (Evenin the late eighteenth century, this was a small figure compared to the size of the American economy.) Today,
Barack Obama presides over a vast federal bureaucracy with more than 2 million civilian employees and a budget of $3.8 trillion.
Because presidents have usually acted together with Congress in solving a crisis, the required congressional approval for these new
agencies has sometimes been easy to obtain. For example, FDR established the Executive Office of the President (EOP; discussed
later) b y executive order; Congress did not object and even approved money for the staff .

Law-Making Process
Committee System
Committee Membership:
Each committee has a chair who o versees its work. Chairs of the major committees are powerful people in the American political system. In
many instances, they can by themselves determine the fate of legislation. They can defeat a bill by slowing it down in the committee, ignoring
it, or encouraging colleagues to amend it to death by watering it down to such an extent that it no longer accomplishes its original purpose.
Chairs can also insert items into bills with dramatic consequences. In one instance of major historical importance, Howard Smith of Virginia,
chair of the House Rules Committee in the early 1960s, single-handedly inserted into the bill that eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964
a provision that gender was to be a protected category similar to race. This meant that people could be sued for discriminating against people
because of their sex. He made the provision a requirement of his support for the bill. Many historians believe that Smith, who generally
opposed new federal civil rights laws for blacks, actually made the addition to kill the bill. He mistakenly thought that his colleagues would
reject the new provision and thus the bill. Furthermore, most standing committees have subcommittees to address specific topics. Composed of
members of the full committee, subcommittees can be quite impor tant, with subcommittee chair s wielding considerab le power over
legislation in their jurisdiction. Determining committee assignments is a highly political process. As previously noted, members on all
committees are assigned by their party leaders, and the majority of seats one ach committeea re held by majorityparty members. In suppor t of
the par tisan model of Congress, research has shown that party leaders reward loyal party members by granting them their choice of
committee assignments. They lik ewise punish those who have been dislo yal by g iving them undesirab le committee assignments, using the
committee assignment pr ocess as one tool to keep members in line.

Consequences of the Committee System

The committee system is well suited to accomplishing tw o somewhat contradictory goals: creating better pub lic policy and assisting member s
in their r e-election efforts. First, as proponents of the informational model of Congress point out, the committee system provides expertise to
improve lawmaking and is the k ey, distinctive institutional feature of Congress. Crafting effective public policy that will make constituents
content and want to re-elect incumbents is difficult. The average member of Congress may not know much about agricultural price supports, or
the finer points of nuclear power, or defense strategy in the Middle East. But by creating a committee system and enabling members to
specialize, both the entire legislative body and the entire country benefit. This basic function of committees—to provide better knowledge—is
the centerpiece of the informational model. Second, the committee system is well suited to members’ individualism. The system fragments
political power and redirects the limelight, enabling members to play a role in crafting leg islation and ear n credit from constituents. Each
member, through his or her role on key committees of concern to constituents, can credibly claim to be powerful and important. Furthermore,
as proponents of the distr ibutional model of Cong ress point out, committees g ive special opportunities to their members to insert into
legislation language granting government projects specifically to one district or state.

Party System

History of Party Systems in the united States

Three long-term trends in the
development of parties and the
American party system:
1) Increasing democratization: The par ties became mor e oriented to ward including all voters in their decision making over
time, especially with the advent of primaries to choose candidates to r un under the par ty labels. By the early twentieth century, the
two major parties were mostly using primary elections instead of party caucuses (small meetings of party loyalists) to choose local
candidates and candidates for Congress.
2) More centralized organizations: The parties became mor e nationalized, as distinct from collections of local par ties with
little in common. Much of this change occur red in the last part of the twentieth century and paralleled the increasingly centralized
nature of American federalism (see Chapter 3). These two trends are related, and there are strong reasons to believe that the
centralization of the political system caused the nationalization of the political parties. This has especially been the case since the
1970s, when the major par ties became adept at raising money for their congressional and presidential candidates.
3) The enduring two-par ty system: There has been much turbulence and strife in American party history, with some parties
failing to survive (the Whigs) and other s rising (the modern Republicans), and some par ties being dominant for long periods (as the
Republicans were between 1896 and 1932). But one thing has stayed constant: the number of serious competitors for control of
Congress and of the presidency has always been limited to two.21 Minor parties have played important roles at times, and have
even garnered a significant share of the vote in national elections. Nevertheless, the United States is undeniably the classic case of a
two party system.
More than 95 percent of the votes cast in nearly all elections for national office are for Democrats or Republican.The occasional
exceptions when third parties do reasonably well in runs for president (1912, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2000), or when independents win
state-wide or congressional races, are newsworthy because they are unusual.

 Two Parties versus More Parties: Nearly every other democratic country in the world has
more than two parties that compete seriously for seats in the national parliament and have a chance to participate
in the government. Most advanced industrial democracies have at least four major parties that win seats in the
parliament. Furthermore, governments typically consist of multiple parties. That is, in most democracies, no one
party controls a majority of seats in the parliament, and thus multiple parties join together to form a majority and
elect the government.
 There is great variation in party systems across the world . Germany has six parties that
compete seriously for parliament and regularly win seats, while Italy has six parties that win seats in parliament,
but more than 27 smaller parties that form coalitions with the six major parties. India has an unusually high
number of parties in the national parliament (as man y as 26 in recent years); this is largely because there are
many state-level parties that send representatives to the national parlia ment. If the pattern in India were
replicated in the United States, it would be as though many states had both national parties—the Democrats and
Republicans— running candidates for office, but being challenged seriously by a state party with an entirely
different label and pursuing state-specific interests. Imagine if Florida elected to Congress members of a party
called the Florida First Party, and these members were not directly aligned with either major national party. This is
what happens in India, and in a few other countries such as Brazil and Spain.

 1) Apart from the larger n umber of par ties and the m ultiparty composition of governments, parties in other
countries tend to be more ideologically cohesive, more centralized, and more disciplined than American parties. By
discipline, we mean the degree to which party members in the legislature vote together on bills. A party is said
have strict party discipline if all its members routinely support its positions and vote accordingly.

 2) It is relatively common in the United States for members of a given party in the House or Senate to be di vided
on a g iven bill, some voting yea and some voting nay. American politicians’ party loyalty is often a matter of
degree and depends on context.26 American political parties are less disciplined in this sense than parties in most
Western European countries and in other advanced industrial democracies.
 3) To be sure, party leaders can make life uncomfortable for mavericks who vote against the par ty too often.
Parties do this b y, for example, funding an opponent in the pr imary or den ying the member of Cong ress
committee assignments that help him or her win re-election. But it is a matter of deg ree. In the American system,
a politician who is popular with his or her constituents does not have to pay much attention to party leaders. This
explains why American parties are not terribly disciplined in Congress, at least relative to parties in other countries.

 4) Another way in which American parties have differed from those in other countries, at least until recently, is in
their increasing orientation toward highprofile, personalized campaigning by the parties’ leaders. In any given
national election in the United States, the candidate for the pr esidency is the focus of attention and the most
visible symbol of the party. He or she appears on television to represent the party’s views and sets its priorities
following the election. Parties in other democracies have traditionally been more team-based. Candidates ran for
election to the parliament under the par ty label and communicated with the public as a group on the basis of a
party platform (a manifesto of policies the party will pursue once in office).

Factors explain the historical weakness of

American parties
1) the federal system of government, which means that the attitudes adopted in each party vary from state to state.
2) the operation of the idea of the separation of powers, which encourages members of all parties in Congress to act
as a watchdog in the Constitution, checking the actions of a president with whom they are in nominal political
agreement.
3) the notion of consensus in American politics; both Democrats and Republicans subscribe to the ideals of the
‘American Creed’, liberty, equality, individualism, democracy and the rule of law.
4) the ethos of individualism in American society, which stresses the role of the individual citizen in shaping his or her
own destiny.

In the twentieth century, the parties became even weaker than they were,a
process helped by:
1) The growing use of primary elections, which took power away from the party bosses.
2) The development of the mass media, which placed more emphasis on candidate-centred electioneering.
3) The arrival of new issues on the agenda in the 1960s and 1970s which cut across the party divide (feminism,
environmentalism, civil rights and Vietnam.
4) The increasing importance of pressure groups and political action committees, which meant that there were more
causes in which Americans could participate and alternative bodies for fundraising for candidates.
5) The breakdown of traditional allegiances among sections of the electorate and a growth of volatility in voting
behavior.
• Federalism In America:
As president between 1981 and 1989, Ronald Reagan presided over a ‘devolution revolution’.After his eight years in office,the states were
funding more of their own programmes and the number run by the federal government in Washington was markedly curtailed. As a result of
his initiatives and the approach of his successors,the last two decades or so have been categorised by Singh10 as an era of ‘devolutionary
federalism’.

 Like his predecessors, an ex-state governor, George W. Bush portrays himself as ‘a faithful friend of federalism’. Particularly in the
early days in office, he leaned on the advice of leading state officials.
 But later developments have worked against such a pro-devolution policy, noticeably: • the dislike of the Religious Right for some
state laws, such as same-sex marriages in Massachusetts and euthanasia in Oregon • the fears of the business community about
excessive regulation by state governments • the attack on the Twin Towers, which focused attention on Washington, as Americans
looked to the White House for a lead in combating terrorism.
Federalism has been beneficial in many ways, its advantages to Americans including the following:
 It recognises the distinctive history, traditions and size of each state, allowing for national unity but not uniformity. If the people of
one state, such as Texas, want the death penalty, they can have it; other states, such as Wisconsin, which voted to abolish it, are not
forced to follow suit. • It provides opportunities for political involvement to many citizens at state and local level; state governments
provide thousands of elective offices for which citizens can vote or run. • States are still a powerful reference point in American
culture,and many citizens identify strongly with their state as well as with their country. • States provide opportunities for
innovation, and act as a testingground for experiments which others can follow in areas such as clean air and health care.