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2 | lame Ducks and unilateralism Despite a limited policymaking role granted by the Constitution, recent presidents have expanded the influence of the office over the policy process through its leadership of the executive bureaucracy. Alexander Hamilton expressed the view that effective governance depends upon presidential leadership of the executive branch. The president’s role as the leader of the bureaucracy is affirmed in Federalist 72: “The administration of government . . . in its most precise signification . . . is limited to executive details and falls peculiarly within the province of the executive department.”1 Of all the elected and nonelected officials in the federal government, the president is uniquely burdened with the responsibility for government performance.2 This gives presidents a powerful incentive to politicize the bureaucracy. In that way, loyal political appointees are entrusted to shepherd White House policy proposals from their formulation all the way to the end of implementation. This chapter maps the growth and development of unilateral action by outgoing presidents over time. Administrative policymaking has become an attractive option for modern presidents to deliver on promises to supporters. In contemporary politics, successful presidential candidates campaign and win office by taking policy positions and making promises.3 Concurrently, modern presidents have a diminished capacity to make significant policy changes because lawmakers are usually deadlocked over contentious issues of social regulation, such as health, safety, and the environment. Agency rulemaking, in particular, is an effective tool of presidential power because it can be wielded strategically to minimize electoral consequences and congressional oversight. Going it alone Recent experience has shown that presidents have the means and incentives to engage in policymaking when they lack congressional majorities or after the presidential honeymoon has ended. Using administrative policy tools differs from a conventional bargaining strategy because these tools allow presidents to 26 • chapter 2 show leadership by acting fast and acting alone.4 By acting fast, presidents are spared the trouble of coalition building and can be decisive without having to negotiate with interest groups and lawmakers.Acting alone means Congress has the burden of responding to the president’s initiative. When Congress makes the next move, it does so in an altered terrain. If the administration’s initiative has popular support, then the opposition may find it too costly to overcome gridlock, muster a majority, and rescind it through the legislative process. The most direct method to circumvent Congress is the executive order, which guides and restricts government agencies. Other unilateral tools with the longest history are budgeting, executive agreements, and commitment of troops.5 Each involves the exercise of authority delegated by Congress to the executive branch. As such, these actions with wide-ranging impacts are potentially subject to oversight and unilateral reversal by the president’s successor , although incoming presidents generally honor the commitments of the previous administration. Mayer’s study of executive orders over time shows that they are rarely overturned in this manner.6 Presidents have a handful of other tools that can be used for discretionary policymaking, including proclamations, foreign policy directives, and signing statements. These allow presidents to influence policy by affecting the implementation of statutory law. For example, proclamations are used to trigger programs and policies predetermined by Congress.They are similar to executive orders, except that they are directed outside government rather than toward government agencies and personnel.7 As with proclamations and executive orders, rulemaking has become an important instrument to advance presidential priorities because rules carry the force of law and are not reversed easily. Rulemaking it is not a unilateral power, strictly speaking, because the process takes place almost wholly within the bureaucracy.8 However, the president’s disproportionate influence over the bureaucracy empowers the policymaking role of the executive branch as a whole. Ever since the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, presidents have taken advantage of its provisions to expand the number of patronage positions and staff the bureaucracy with loyalists.9 The majority of administrative rules are developed at the direction of Congress , often under deadline. In her authoritative work on executive leadership, Elena Kagan argued that comparatively few rules are initiated at the discretion of appointed agency heads.10 Administrators seldom get to choose which regulations are promulgated; instead they use their discretion to affect the process and substance of final rules. Other research on the executive bureaucracy supports a more active policymaking role for White House loyalists. David Lewis found that when the White House enacts policy unilaterally through discretionary rulemaking, the initiatives are driven by political...

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