THE CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS: Article II
Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President

• Elected for a fixed term of 4 years
• as qualified by Amendment XXII (the first American term limit)

• Selected by an Electoral College
• as qualified by Amendment XII.
• (Originally, the Framers expected the vice president to be the person who came in second, as if Bob Dole would have been Clinton's VP. After parties began to run "tickets" of a team of candidates for P and VP, this led to a tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr in 1800.
• By Amendment XII (ratified 1804) the candidates for P and VP are listed and counted separately

• It is still the case that the votes in the Electoral College are allocated by a formula wherein each state has a number of votes equal to its membership in the House and Senate, e.g. CA: 52+2; PA: 21+2;WY: 1+2, etc.
• This obviously violates the one person, one vote norm.

• Most states allocate their electoral votes as a bloc to the winner of a plurality of popular votes in their state. (Exceptions, ME and NE)

• It is obviously possible for a candidate to have fewer popular votes than another, but to win in the Electoral College. This happened in 1888, when incumbent president Grover Cleveland got more popular votes than Benjamin Harrison, but Harrison got more electoral votes and won the office. It seems to be happening in 2000.
• How bad is this? Consider the ways in which direct election can choose a Condorcet loser. (Consider 1860 and 1912. I believe that Douglas could have beaten Lincoln in a two way race in 1860, and that T. Roosevelt could have beaten Wilson in a two way race in 1912.)
• When there are more than two candidates, there is no method of election that is fully satisfactory.

• Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948 with an executive order based on this power.
• It was on the basis of this power that Clinton issued his "don’t ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military.
• Uses of American armed forces abroad:

• Make treaties with advice and consent of 2/3 of the Senate.

• land mine treaty
• test ban treaty

• Appoint ambassadors, judges and other public ministers, with the advice and consent of the Senate (simple majority)
• Give information on the State of the Union
• Take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

• Article I, section 8: Congress shall have the power to declare war.
• Only 5 declarations of war: 1812,1846, 1898, 1917, 1941 relative to >239 unilateral military actions
• Other wars: Korea, Vietnam, Gulf

• Politics election promises and war. What does this say about the credibility of politicians?

• 1916 "He kept us out of war."
• 1940 "Your boys will not be sent into any foreign war."(see 385-6 in Shepsle)
• 1964 Johnson, the peace candidate. The joke.

• War and retrospective voting in presidential elections.

• Defeat of incumbent parties: 1920, 1952, 1968, 1976 (why?)
• Victories of incumbent parties: 1944, 1972 (why?)

• How could Nixon, who won in 1968, saying he had a plan to end the war, win in a landslide in 1972 after four more years of war? A spatial model.

• 1968: HHH: 4.05; Voters: 4.13; Nixon: 4.39
• 1972: McGovern: 1.8; Nixon: 4.6
• Note also the reduction in American battle deaths; Vietnamization of the war.

Examples (as well as the above information on executive orders and military actions without declaration of war):

• Louisiana Purchase (Jefferson)
• Annexation of Texas (Polk)
• Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln)
• Internment of the Japanese in World War II (FD Roosevelt)
• Desegregation of the military (Truman)

• End discrimination against homosexuality in the military (Clinton)

Another spatial model:

• _____________C___________________V_________________P____

If the president chooses P, his ideal point, he will probably be overridden by Congressional action.

Congress might choose C, but the president could veto that, and Congress could not override (because 2/3 of Congress agree only that policy should be no further towards P than V).

The point nearest to the president's ideal point that cannot be overridden is V, so the president will choose something near V.

• From 1973-1997, Presidents issued about 1,000 executive orders.
• Congress only tried to overturn 37 of them.
• Only 3 of 37 became law.
• Seemingly presidents act unilaterally when they think they are within the range of where they could issue a sustainable veto of a Congressional effort to override their action.