1. Unit Five:
The Executive Branch

2. The Executive Branch: Structure Review
President & Vice President
Main Function: Lead
Executive Branch
Cabinet
Main Function:
Advisors to the President
Regulatory Agencies
Main Function: Enforce laws
and regulations

3. Think About It… Interpret each of the following quotes.
What message can be gleaned from each quote?
What seem to be the Presidents attitudes’ toward their jobs?

4. President Harry S Truman
"I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the sense to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to."
33rd President,

5. President John F. Kennedy
"No easy problem ever comes to the President of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them."
35th President,
National television address during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962

6. President Lyndon B. Johnson
"The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands."
36th President,

7. President Richard Nixon
"Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government."
37th President,
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, President Nixon departs the White House after his resignation,
August, 1974

8. The President Current: Barack Obama Elected: 2008 Terms: 1
Party: Democratic

9. The President
The President performs many roles and functions within the Executive Branch
Wears Many Hats

10. The President’s Roles Chief of State Chief Executive
Chief Administrator
Chief Diplomat
Commander in Chief
Chief Legislator
Party Chief
Chief Citizen
Economic Leader
Judicial Leader

11. Are the roles of a Republican or Democratic President the same?

12. Chief of State Ceremonial head of government Symbol of the nation
Reigns and rules
Which nations do we currently not “recognize?”
Does this change from presidency to presidency?

13. Chief Executive Execute the tasks of Congress and the nation
Get it done
Job approval

14. Chief Administrator
Heads an administration that employs more than 2.7 million civilians and spends more than $2 trillion a year.
Numerous federal agencies and commissions

15. Chief Diplomat Main architect of American foreign policy
Nation’s spokesperson to the world
Secretary of State

16. Commander in Chief Civilian leading the nation’s armed forces
1.4+ million men and women in uniform and the nation’s entire military arsenal
Secretary of Defense

17. Chief Legislator Architect of public policy and public policy matters
Sets Congressional agenda
Initiates, suggests, requests, insists, and sometimes demands legislation
State of the Union
Check and balance of Congress

18. Chief of Party Acknowledged leader of the political party
Leads party and its members
If president is successful, ride the coattails.
If the president is not perceived as successful, run the opposite direction or ignore him/her

19. Chief Citizen Representative of all the people (Chief of State)
Represent the public interest rather than private / interest groups
Moral compass of nation
Votes and follows the rules

20. Economic Leader
Monitor and make adjustments to help the nation’s economic
Philosophical differences between political parties?
Secretary of Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Energy, etc.

21. Judicial Leader Set the judicial enforcements of the laws of Congress
Appointments of federal court judges up to the Supreme Court
Attorney General

22. What do you think is the most important role the President has?

24. The President: Qualifications and Term of Office
Article II of the Constitution: the president must be
A natural born citizen of US
At least 35 years old
A resident of the US for 14 years before office
Informal Requirements: government experience, education, money, character
The 22nd Amendment in 1951 set 2 4-year term limit on presidency

25. The President’s Term(s)
Presidents may serve two 4-Year Terms
A maximum of 10 years total
Until 1951, the Constitution placed no limit on the number of terms a President might serve.
Several Presidents, beginning with George Washington, refused to seek more than two terms.
Soon the ‘No Third Term’ tradition became an unwritten rule.

26. The President’s Salary
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other Emolument from the United States,or any of them.

27. The President’s Salary
Originally, the President’s salary was $25,000 per year. The President’s current salary is $400,000 plus a $50,000 taxable expense account per year. The President also receives $120,000 nontaxable allowance for travel and entertainment, and living accommodations in two residences- the White House and Camp David.

28. Presidential Succession and the Vice President

29. Who’s in Line? Not originally in the Constitution 25th Amendment
Vice President
Speaker of the House
President Pro Tempore of the Senate
Secretary of Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General

30. Who’s in Line?
Everyone in the Presidential Succession may never all be in the same room at the same time. During the Annual State of the Union Address, when everyone in Government meets, there is always someone in the chain who is hidden away in a secret location.

31. Presidential Succession Act of 1947
Determined the list followed by 14 heads of Cabinet Departments in the order that they were created by Congress.
Was There a reason they went in that order?

32. Presidential Disability
Before the 25th Amendment no provisions for Presidential Disability.
Or who was to make that decision.

33. The Vice Presidency
“ I am Vice President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.” –John Adams
1st Vice President

34. Importance of the Office
Two Formal Duties:
Preside over the Senate
Help Decide the question of Presidential Disability
“President in Waiting.”

35. Balance the Ticket How a Vice President is chosen
Running mate chosen to strengthen Presidential election chances
Ideological
Racial
Geographic
Gender

36. Vice Presidential Vacancy
18 times
25th Amendment in 1967
President nominates a replacement
Confirmed by Congress
Spiro Agnew  Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford  Nelson Rockefeler