Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-19T12:16:07.517Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward A Theory of Congressional-Executive Relations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Peri E. Arnold  and
L. John Roos
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The theme of the second Nixon administration appears to be “Save the Presidency.” It is clear that Mr. Nixon views his best defense against critics to be the claim of a constitutional imperative to defend his office. And, he continually reminds us, it is an obligation to defend not only the Presidency, but the strong Presidency.

Mr. Nixon's attachment to the strong Presidency is more than a protective strategy. It grows out of American practice and recent theory. His language and themes are predictable within our political system. In American national politics, substantive issues and questions of institutional roles are continually entangled.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , July 1974 , pp. 410 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Mr. Nixon's question-and-answer session at the Executive Club of Chicago on March 15, 1974, provides an excellent example of the motif of Presidential strength in his recent statements.

2 PresidentLincoln, Abraham, “Message to Special Session of Congress,” 07 4, 1861Google Scholar.

3 See Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, The Imperial Presidency (Boston, 1973), pp. 64–67Google Scholar, 105–109. Schlesinger stresses informal comity and political understanding as linking the President and Congress at these moments of expansive claims of Presidential power.

4 The major political biographies of Roosevelt are: Freidel, Frank, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 4 vols. (Boston, 1952–1973)Google Scholar; Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, The Age of Roosevelt, 3 vols. (Boston, 1957)Google Scholar; Burns, James M., Roosevelt, 2 vols. (New York, 1956 & 1971)Google Scholar.

5 Binkley, Wilfred, The President and Congress (New York, 1947)Google Scholar.

6 Johnson, Walter, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (Boston, 1960)Google Scholar.

7 Rossiter, Clinton, The American Presidency (2nd ed.New York, 1960)Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., p. 237.

9 Ibid., pp. 250–251.

10 Neustadt, Richard, Presidential Power (New York, 1964)Google Scholar.

11 Burns, James M., The Deadlock of Democracy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963)Google Scholar.

12 Neustadt's little book is troublesome and, perhaps, deceptive. We want to tread a fine line between oversimplification and all the rich implications we see in Neustadt's analysis. We admit that there are statements here which can be drawn out of the whole context and used to support the alternate theory of the Presidency and Congress we offer below. But we attempt to deal with this book as a whole conception and reconstruct the argument which characterizes the whole work.

13 Neustadt, p. 43.

14 Ibid., p. 174.

15 Burns, p. 338.

16 Ibid., p. 260.

17 Ibid., p. 325.

18 Clark, Joseph, Congress: The Sapless Branch (New York, 1964)Google Scholar.

19 Bolling, Richard, House Out of Order (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

20 Davidson, Roger, Kovenock, David M., and O'Leary, Michael K., “Theories of Congress,” in Moe, Ronald C. (ed.), Congress and the President (Pacific Palisades, California, 1971), p. 139Google Scholar.

21 Kendall, Willmoore, The Conservative Affirmation (Chicago, 1959)Google Scholar. Also see Kendall, , “The Two Majorities,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 4 (11, 1960), pp. 317–345CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Griffith, Ernest, Congress: Its Contemporary Role (New York, 1951)Google Scholar.

23 Burnham, James, Congress and the American Tradition (Chicago, 1959)Google Scholar.

24 de Grazia, Alfred, Republic in Crisis (New York, 1965)Google Scholar.

25 Hamilton, , Jay, and Madison, , The Federalist (New York, n.d.), p. 337Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., p. 445.

27 Madison, James, Debates of the Federal Convention, in Farrand, Max (ed.), Records of the Federal Convention, vol. I (rev. ed., New Haven, 1937), pp. 282–293Google Scholar.

28 Federalist, p. 424.

29 Ibid., p. 423.

30 Ibid., p. 429.

31 Alfred de Grazia, p. 75.

32 On the politics and practice of PPB see: Schick, Allan, “The Road to PPB: The Stages of Budget Reform,” Public Administration Review, XXVI (12, 1966), pp. 243–258CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merewitz, Leonard and Sosnick, Stephen, The Budget's New Clothes (Chicago, 1971)Google Scholar; Wildavsky, Aaron, “The Political Economy of Efficiency,” Public Administration Review, XXVI (12, 1966), pp. 292–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 On the Army Corps of Engineers, see Maass, Arthur, Muddy Waters (Cambridge, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the Farm Security Administration, see Mc-Connell, Grant, The Decline of Agrarian Democracy (Berkeley, 1953)Google Scholar.

34 On the “captive” President and Vietnam, see: Halberstam, David, The Best and the Brightest (Greenwich, Conn., 1972)Google Scholar. A consistent, but different, analysis is offered by Janis, Irving, Victims of Groupthink (Boston, 1972), pp. 101–135Google Scholar.

35 On executive reorganization, see: Seidman, Harold, Politics, Position and Power (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Arnold, Peri E., “Reorganization and Politics,” Public Administration Review, 34 3 (05/06, 1974), pp. 205–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Ripley, Randall, Power in the Senate (New York, 1969)Google Scholar.

37 Lowi, Theodore J., “American Business, Public Policy, Case Studies, and Political Theory,” World Politics, XVI (07, 1964), 677–715CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 In his contribution to this issue, “In the Wake of Watergate: Congressional Reform?”

39 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr, The Coming of the New Deal, vol. II, The Age of Roosevelt (Boston, 1957), pp. 150, 398–406Google Scholar.

40 Ibid., chapter 3 and Shover, John L., “Populism in the Nineteen-Thirties: The Battle for AAA,” Agricultural History, XXXIX (01, 1965), pp. 17–24Google Scholar.

41 Wilson, Woodrow, Congressional Government (Boston, 1885)Google Scholar.

42 Wilfred Binkley, p. 178.

43 Bailey, Stephen, Congress Makes a Law (New York, 1964), p. 234Google Scholar.

44 Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 1950–1969. Figures for Truman before 1950 were not compiled by CQ. After 1969, rules for recording votes in the House were changed, making totals noncomparable. For 1963 the whole year was attributed to Kennedy.

45 This data is drawn from an examination of the Congressional Record. It is presented in L. John Roos' unpublished master's thesis, University of Chicago, 1969, and Stephen Witham's ongoing master's research at the University of Notre Dame. Our gratitude to Mr. Witham. The bills in 1961–62 were all those receiving a roll call in both houses. In 1947, 1953, 1959, 1962 and 1966, bills were selected at random by Mr. Witham. The other bills come from Roos' thesis.