Ep. 82 – Executive Branch

We've talked about the Legislative and Judicial Branches. Now, it's time to learn what the Executive Branch does!

Episode Transcript

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Now this is the FCB Podcast Network. The Great US solved for Jeremy stand
Everything and they fought so way WorkingAmerica Land. Welcome back to the Growing

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Patriot Podcast. I'm your host AmeliaHamilton. This week we are going to
wrap up check and balances by learningall about the executive branch. Hi.

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I am Sam postel Um. Iwork at an organization called ballot Pedia,
and i also teach every now andagain, and I'm working on a book
on Congress for my dissertation to become. I'm a doctor of political science.
So all right, so you knowabout the three branches of government pretty well?
Then a little bit we'll see ifwe can test my knowledge here.

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Here we go, no trick questions, we promise. So what was the
executive branch created to do? We'vetalked a little bit about the legislative and
judicial so far, so what doesthat leave for the executive. Yeah,
So the executive branch as it wasenvisioned by the founders was I think,
really to tie the nation together,and the executive branch helps give the nation

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its legitimacy and its identity as onecountry. So we had a governing document,
and we had a government before theConstitution was ratified and before we were
the United States of America, andthat was the Articles of Confederation. That
form of government did not have anexecutive, or to the extent that it
did have an executive, that wasthe President of the Congress at the time

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or the President of the Legislature atthe time. But the problem with this
arrangement was that there was nobody tostop the states from doing things that the
states were not supposed to do.So there were a number of states that
were in the process of making treatieswith other countries. There were a number
of states that we're creating trade agreementswith one another exclusive of other states.

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That, as you can imagine,that makes it really hard to call the
country a country when the states arein essence creating agreements with other countries contrary
to other states that exist within theUnited States, and also excluding other states,
or passing taxes on trades that otherstates are trying to make them.
So the executive make sure that thosekinds of things don't happen, that abuses

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of the states against other states doesn'thappen. Okay. So we've also talked
a lot about checks and balances,So what can the executive branch do to
check the other two? Yeah,there are some powers that the executive can
use that are more formal and somethat are more informal. So there are

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obvious formal checks that are within theconstitution, such as you know, the
president has the ability to veto lawthat's passed by the legislature. So this
just means that he can declare alaw that the legislature has passed unconstitutional and
say you can't pass it, butthen the legislature can override that veto with
two thirds vote in both house.Another thing that's more informal and a more

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informal way that the president can vetois he can just say nothing about the
law. This is called the pocketveto. So if he just doesn't approve
or sign the law that's been passedby the Congress, then it can't go
into effect. And presumably if he'sunwilling to sign it, then he's not
going to execute or enforce that law. So that's one way that he can
check the legislature in a formal sense. In an informal sense, he can,

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and presidents have done this to agreater or lesser extent. They can
set the legislative agenda in certain ways. So one way that this was done
starting with George Washington's presidency was hegives a State of the Union address and
he lays out what he thinks thatCongress should do. Washington actually visited the
Congress and gave a speech that wasthe State of the Union. Presidents following

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Washington didn't do that until Woodrow Wilsonat the turn of the twentieth century,
and then it picked back up,and now we have a formal State of
the Union address that's publicized and peoplewatch it and they comment on it and
all of these things, which relatesto another way that the president can really
check the power of the legislature drivethe power of the legislature, which is

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through the use of media. Soone way that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did this
was he had frequent fireside chats,which were radio programs that he would put
on rather frequently, and he wouldtell the nation what he thought that the
legislature should do. So there's avariety of ways that the president can check
the legislature or can balance the legislativepower. The president can also play a

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large role in judicial power. Themost obvious way that he does this is
he appoints judges. So those arejust kind of the broad ways that the
executive can check and balance the powersof the other branches. Okay, and
can those other branches in return checkand balance the executive. Yeah. So
an obvious way, or the mostobvious way that another branch can check the

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executive is the judiciary. So thepresident can actually issue what are called executive
orders, which have something of theforce of law. The judges of the
federal courts they can look at theseexecutive orders and they can declare them unconstitutional,
and if they're declared unconstitutional, thenthey no longer have the force of

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law. Another obvious way that theConstitution lays out for a branch to check
the president is the legislative impeachment power. So the legislature can start an impeachment
process and then it can actually goto trial at a federal court and they
can impeach the president. Although thishas only happened three times that it's actually

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ended up in the federal court,and an impeachment trial has ended up in
the federal courts. So although it'svery very frequently threatened by the legislature,
the legislature hasn't used it as muchas I think the framers thought that they
would. Yeah, and can youtell us a little bit about what impeachment
means. Yeah, So, impeachmentmeans that if the president acts treasonously or

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something like that, if he's consideredcorrupt, then the legislature can point out
that corruption and then they can voteon it, and as a result of
that vote, then that can actuallygo to trial in the federal courts,
and the federal courts can impeach orremove the president from office. At the

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Federal Convention, the delegates talked alot about this as one way to check
presidential power, and it's therefore surprisingthat it really hasn't come to impeachment trials
very often in the history of theUnited States. Yeah, but even that
idea, you know that that justkind of puts in focus the whole,
the whole point of what they weredoing, and they want to make sure

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they weren't going to have another kingwho could just be what they wanted.
Yeah. Absolutely, So when we'rethinking about the executive branch, you know,
it's been you know, good twohundreds some years since since this all
was laid out. What has changed, or you know, has Would the
founders recognize the executive branch today?Yeah, I think I think in some

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ways they would recognize the presidency andin some ways they wouldn't. So.
Um, there are various aspects ofthe presidency that in some ways mirror what
Washington was doing with the presidency.Um. The president is this is seen
today to be the sort of leaderof the country. Um. In important
ways, he sets the agenda,and this is this is what Washington was

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was believed to do, although hewas apprehensive to take on that role himself.
The people at the time of thefounding, they really believed that someone,
someone with some strength and gravitas orpopularity or some credibility was necessary to
tie the country together and to renderus one people. So in that sense,
the president still really ties us togetherand he forms sort of our national

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identity. Other countries recognize us throughthe face of our president. Right,
that's the person that they pay mostattention to in other countries when they think
of America. So in that sense, the presidency is similar, or the
executive branch is similar to the timeof the founding, but in other ways
it's very different. So the mostthe most obvious way that the presidency is

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different is there are a number ofdifferent administrations that are part of the executive
branch. So we generally think ofthe president as the whole executive branch,
but that's not really the case nowadays. So there are a variety of different
administrations, So the US Department ofAgriculture, the Food and Drug Administration,
the Environmental Protection Agency, these differentadministrations are parts of the executive branch today,

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and wall it was true that thepresident had a cabinet and he had
different what we're called ministers in theConstitution, there weren't exactly agencies or administrations
who would then take the laws fromCongress and then flesh them out and not
only not only execute those laws,but actually write what are part of those

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laws and part of the rules thatare to enforce those laws. So the
president has taken on a lot morepower when it comes to executing the law,
even so much as writing some ofthe rules that make up those laws.
Today. What do you think ourframers would think about that? Well,
in some sense, I think thatthere are certain arguments that the president

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needs to have greater latitude and theirimplied powers in the Constitution and those powers
need to be adapted to modern daysbut or the modern day. But in
another sense, it's very difficult toreconcile this aspect of the presidency with the
fact that the Constitution lays out separatebranches of government and the legislature is supposed

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to be the one governing. SoArticle one of the Constitution, for instance,
says, all legislative power shall residein the legislature. Well, the
president, now, through these administrationsand through these agencies, he plays a
certain role in writing legislation in termsof these rules through these administrations or these
agencies. So perhaps they wouldn't likethe president going into lawmaking and rule writing

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in all of these things. Allright, We in previous episodes have also
talked a lot about how compromise hasbeen such a big part of creating our
country and even from choosing whether ornot we would declare independence. You know,
not our founders did not agree oneverything. Were there any disagreements on
what the executive branch would do?Yeah, there were a lot of disagreements

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at the Constitutional Convention, and theywere wide ranging. So many members,
perhaps about half of the members atthe beginning of the Federal Convention where they
wrote the Constitution, believed that thereshould be more than one president, as
crazy as that sounds. So probablyabout half of the members at the Constitutional
Convention they wanted three or they atleast wanted more than one person to be

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the president. And the reason forthis was they really thought that one president,
who who had all the power withinthe executive branch, would look a
lot like a king, and theyfeared that there would be a lot of
abuses. At the state level.I believe that there were only two states,
New York and New Jersey. Ibelieve that had a single executive.

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So at the time that the Constitutionwas written, there's a lot of popularity
for a three person or a severalperson executive, or at least a single
executive who had to listen to acabinet or could potentially be vetoed by a
cabinet. So there were a lotof arguments about how the presidency was going

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to look. Would it be oneperson, would it be three, how
many would it be? And evenJohn C. Calhoun in eighteen fifty he
recommends, or right before he's aboutto die, he's about to recommend an
amendment to the US Constitution to changethe presidency from a one person president to
a two or three person presidency.So that's a very interesting thing that they

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had to compromise on. They hada lot of debate about this. There
was a plan called the Virginia Plan, largely written by James Madison, presented
at the Constitutional Convention. Was presentedby Edmund Randolph. Because everybody knew that
Madison had had certain ideas of completelytransforming the Articles of Confederation. The Patterson
Plan, given by the delegates ofNew Jersey, laid out a different role

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for the presidency. And then AlexanderHamilton the day after the Patterson Plan is
presented, or the New Jersey Plan, he came in and he submitted a
plan that looked a lot like creatingmonarchy or a kingship instead of a president
with limited powers that could be checkedby the other branches. And Hamilton's role,
people have speculated about how serious hewas about really transforming the president into

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a king or something like a king. Directly following that, the people who
were supporting the Patterson planner the NewJersey Plan sort of backed off and they
were willing to compromise with people likeMadison and the Virginia Plan because they now
realized how crazy Alexander Hamilton and someother people were when it came to looking

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to reform the presidency in the Articlesof Confederation to look more like kingship or
monarchy. So that's one really interestingthing that happened throughout the convention to create
the presidency as we now know it. So is that how we got the
system of a president and a vicepresident? Is that did that come from
wanting more than one person up there? Well? I think that there was

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always there were always plans to havea vice president or at least some ministers
to the president. And it's questionablehow they don't talk too much about the
vice president in the debates at theConstitute at the Constitutional Convention. But yeah,
I'm not sure if that's really relatedto the three person presidency idea.

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Okay, So, as as timehas gone on, I'm sure there are
a lot of misunderstandings that people haveabout what the executive branch is supposed to
do or what they're not supposed todo. What are some misconceptions that we
can clear up today? Yeah,So one thing, and this is one

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thing that I touched upon a littlebit earlier in our conversation is that the
president now plays a pretty large rolein laying out specific policy agendas for Congress.
So an example of this, arecent example of this is perhaps Obamacare.
Right, we have a law that'sthe Affordable Care Act, but many
people still identify it with a certainpresident Obamacare because President Obama had an idea

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of providing universal healthcare from the federalgovernment to all people, and he and
his administration and people within his administrationlaid out what they thought this would look
like, and they recommended they recommendedpolicy to the legislative branch. Similarly,

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the Dodd Frank Act was recommended,and large strokes of that legislation was recommended
to Congress from the president. Onething that I think people don't quite understand
about the presidency today is that thepresidency has shifted to a legislative role,
or a more and more legislative role. And people argue about this quite frequently.

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How to what extent should the presidentbe involved in writing laws if the
constitution gives that power to the legislature, And that's that's something that's sort of
open to debate. And one thingthat is very different from at the time
of the American Founding. All right, So if we want to leave our
listeners with one thing today about theexecutive branch, what should they remember about

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it and be looking for when theyhear about the president. Yeah, one
thing I think that they should bethinking about when it comes to the president
is that many people get wrapped upin presidential power and how much power the
president has and presidential tyranny and allof these things executive overreach. One thing

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that I think that someone like AlexanderHamilton or someone at the time of the
Founding would would counsel students to consideris that the presidential term is a four
year term. And whenever people wouldget really upset with Alexander Hamilton for recommending
an energetic executive or a unitary executive, would he would often call it,
he would remind them that the peoplealways have the power to unseat the president.

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And this is one decisive way thatit's different from a monarch or a
king, is that the people largelyhave control over the president, and the
people can remove the president through election, and we don't just have to rely
upon the legislature to to impeach thepresident. So one thing that is consistent

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about American politics and the executive isthat the people still, whether it's through
public opinion or whether it's through elections, the people still have a lot of
power over what the president, whatthe administration does, through showing popular support
for certain things, or even throughvoting, and even if it's not just
for the president himself, the peoplecan send a message to the president whether

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they approve. This is what midtermelections are for. So that's one thing
that I would tell students to keepin mind, is that the people still
and continually will have power over thepresident in terms of elections. Yes,
it is definitely the key point.Sam. Thank you so much for joining
us today. This was a perfectoverview of the executive branch. Thank you

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so much. There you haven't theexecutive branch. Is that what you thought
it was all about? Is thatwhat you thought the president did? Let
us know if anything surprised you.You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

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and Instagram at Growing Patriots. Thankyou so much for joining us and
I can't wait to get into thenext section of American history with you.
We will be talking all about theBill of Rights, they create us,
all Jeremy standing, and they buckedaway with America land Over. This has

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