2.5 & 2.6 - Checks and Expansion of Presidential Power

Which of the following statements is most accurately supported by the data in the table?

• President Clinton greatly reduced the use of presidential signing statements compared with his predecessors.

• While President George W. Bush issued fewer signing statements than President Clinton, his included more objections than President Clinton’s.

• President Clinton’s brief access to the power of the line-item veto allowed him to issue fewer signing statements that raised concerns about legislation.

• President George W. Bush was forced to issue more signing statements as a direct result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Which of the following is the primary reason for the tensions that exist between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government?

• Each branch sets and approves the other’s budget.

• The branches are staffed with many of the same people.

• The branches have different constituencies with different interests.

• The branches are responsible for the selection of Cabinet-level officials.

• Each branch has the constitutional power to levy taxes.

Which of the following is a member of the White House Staff?

• The chair of the Federal Reserve Board

• The national security advisor

• The secretary of commerce

• The ambassador to the United Nations

• The attorney general

The usefulness to the President of having cabinet members as political advisers is undermined by the fact that..

• the President has little latitude in choosing cabinet members

• cabinet members have no political support independent of the President

• cabinet members are usually drawn from Congress and retain loyalties to Congress

• the loyalties of cabinet members are often divided between loyalty to the President and loyalty to their own executive departments

• the cabinet operates as a collective unit and individual members have no access to the President

The Senate must confirm all of the following presidential appointments EXCEPT

• United States attorneys

• United States Supreme Court justices

• White House staff

• heads of executive agencies

• federal judges

The expansion of the executive branch since 1939 has affected the separation of powers by

• increasing presidential control over the legislative process

• increasing the power of the media as a result of more frequent presidential press conferences

• reducing the power of the Supreme Court through the use of executive orders

• giving more power to interest groups than to parties

• making senatorial approval of presidential appointees ceremonial

To be sure, the President’s control over foreign affairs had been growing since the Theodore Roosevelt administration [1901–1909]. . . . [President Roosevelt’s] acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone preceded Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter World War I, which was a prelude to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s management of the run-up to the victorious American effort in World War II. In the 1950s, Harry S. Truman’s response to the Soviet threat included the decision to fight in Korea without a Congressional declaration of war, and Dwight Eisenhower used the Central Intelligence Agency and brinkmanship to contain Communism. Nineteenth-century presidents had had to contend with Congressional influences in foreign affairs, and particularly with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But by the early 1960s, the president had become the undisputed architect of U.S. foreign policy.

One reason for this was the emergence of the United States as a great power with global obligations. Neither Wilson nor FDR could have imagined taking the country to war without a Congressional declaration, but the exigencies of the cold war in the 1950s heightened the country’s reliance on the president to defend its interests. Truman could enter the Korean conflict without having to seek Congressional approval simply by describing the deployment of U.S. troops as a police action taken in conjunction with the United Nations.

-Robert Dallek, “Power and the Presidency, From Kennedy to Obama,” Smithsonian magazine, January 2011

Which of the following statements describes the author’s main argument in the passage?

• Congress must reassert its responsibility to declare war in order to ensure a balance of power.

• Presidential power in foreign policy has expanded since the beginning of the twentieth century.

• The Korean War was a turning point in presidential power.

• The acquisition of the Panama Canal gave the president undisputed power over foreign policy.

To be sure, the President’s control over foreign affairs had been growing since the Theodore Roosevelt administration [1901–1909]. . . . [President Roosevelt’s] acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone preceded Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter World War I, which was a prelude to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s management of the run-up to the victorious American effort in World War II. In the 1950s, Harry S. Truman’s response to the Soviet threat included the decision to fight in Korea without a Congressional declaration of war, and Dwight Eisenhower used the Central Intelligence Agency and brinkmanship to contain Communism. Nineteenth-century presidents had had to contend with Congressional influences in foreign affairs, and particularly with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But by the early 1960s, the president had become the undisputed architect of U.S. foreign policy.

One reason for this was the emergence of the United States as a great power with global obligations. Neither Wilson nor FDR could have imagined taking the country to war without a Congressional declaration, but the exigencies of the cold war in the 1950s heightened the country’s reliance on the president to defend its interests. Truman could enter the Korean conflict without having to seek Congressional approval simply by describing the deployment of U.S. troops as a police action taken in conjunction with the United Nations.

-Robert Dallek, “Power and the Presidency, From Kennedy to Obama,” Smithsonian magazine, January 2011

Which of the following is a difference between the power of nineteenth-century presidents and that of the modern president according to the passage?

• Presidents in the nineteenth century had to contend with congressional committees, which had significant powers in foreign affairs.

• Modern presidents have acquired the power of the purse, which allows them to spend freely on foreign affairs.

• Modern presidents must win wars in order to keep members of Congress from criticizing their foreign policy.

• Presidents in the nineteenth century were more likely to support intervention in foreign affairs.

In The Federalist 70, Alexander Hamilton states that “energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” In this statement, Hamilton is arguing in favor of the need for

• a single executive who can respond quickly to crises

• a president who has a good understanding of public policy

• an electoral college in the selection of the president

• a president who is youthful and assertive

In the last years presidential primacy, so indispensable to the political order, has turned into presidential supremacy. The constitutional Presidency—as events so apparently disparate as the Indochina War and the Watergate affair showed, has become the imperial Presidency and threatens to be the revolutionary Presidency. . . . The imperial Presidency was essentially the creation of foreign policy. A combination of doctrines and emotions—belief in the permanent and universal crisis, fear of communism, faith in the duty and right of the United States to intervene swiftly in every part of the world—had brought about the unprecedented centralization of decisions. Prolonged war in Vietnam strengthened the tendencies toward both centralization and exclusion. So the imperial Presidency grew at the expense of the constitutional order. Like the cowbird, it hatched its own eggs and pushed the others out of the nest. And, as it overwhelmed the traditional separation of powers in foreign affairs, it began to aspire toward an equivalent centralization of power in the domestic polity.

-Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency, 1973

Which of the following is an accurate comparison of the text by Schlesinger and The Federalist 70 ?

• While Schlesinger views centralization of power in the presidency as dangerous, The Federalist 70 views it as vital to the presidency’s effectiveness.

• While The Federalist 70 views centralization of power in the presidency as dangerous, Schlesinger views it as vital to the presidency’s effectiveness.

• Both Schlesinger and The Federalist 70 view centralization of power in the presidency as dangerous.

• Both Schlesinger and The Federalist 70 view centralization of power in the presidency as vital to the presidency’s effectiveness.