1994 Presidential-Congressional Relations
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1994 has not been a good year to be President of the United States. 1995 promises to be worse. For the first two years of his term in office, William Clinton, the American nation's 42nd President, had the task of working with a Congress the majority of whom were members of his own Democratic Party. Effective in January of 1995, per the elections of this past November 8th, President Bill Clinton will face a Congress with Republican Party majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. At all times tension between the Executive and Legislative branches of government have caused presidential successes (on domestic policy at least) to be the exception rather than the rule. The situation as it now stands holds the dangerous potential of bringing presidential-congressional relations to a standstill. While the current dilemma is exacerbated by the recent elections, the problem has been developing for several decades.Constitutionally speaking, presidential powers have been ill-defined from the beginning. "The executive power shall be vested in the president of the United States of America" is the ambiguous definition the U.S. Constitution gave the office (Lineberry, Edwards & Wattenberg, 1993, p. 291). Alexander Hamilton, in "The Federalist Papers, No. 69," attempted to reassure potential supporters of the Constitution that the president would not be a despot, indeed, "it would be difficult to determine whether that magistrate would, in the aggregate, posses
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by roadblocking approval of his proposals. Roosevelt fought back with constitutional maneuvers and direct appeals to the electorate. He once threatened to stack the Supreme Court with his personal nominees. It was the advent of World War II, again a crisis, that allowed FDR to reassert his presidential powers. In the name of military emergency and in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief, Roosevelt ruled Congress and the nation in a manner that played fast and loose with Constitutional divisions of power (Cronin, 1990, pp. 397-400).
It was not surprising, then, that at the War's end Congress again retaliated by fiercely opposing at every turn Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman. It was, perhaps, a necessary battle. Objectively, the presidency had needed undemocratic powers in order to defeat undemocratic enemies; that struggle won, those undemocratic powers needed to be wrested away from the presidency if the balance of power among the branches of government was to be reestablished on an equilibrium.
Power, once held, is not easily given up. The presidencies of the 60s, 70s and 80s, with few exceptions have revolved around determining questions of who, constitutionally, has the right to certain power prerogatives: Congres
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Edwards Wattenberg, Executive Legislative, Issue Particularly, Federalist Papers, Franklin Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Executive Branch, Congress President, branches government, lineberry edwards, lineberry edwards wattenberg, edwards wattenberg, executive branch, bill clinton, readings american politics, st martin's, york st, ed york, martin's press, rosenbloom ed, classic readings american, politics nivola rosenbloom, st martin's press,
Approximate Word count = 1567
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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