The
President of the United States is the
head of state and
head of government of the
United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition. The President leads the
executive branch of the
federal government and is one of only two nationally elected federal officers (the other being the
Vice President of the United States).
Among other powers and responsibilities,
Article II of the U.S. Constitution charges the President to "faithfully execute" federal law, makes the President
commander-in-chief of the
United States armed forces, allows the President to nominate executive and judicial officers with the
advice and consent of the
Senate, and allows the President to grant
pardons and reprieves.
The President is
indirectly elected by the people through the
Electoral College to a four-year term. Since 1951, presidents have been limited to two terms by the
Twenty-second Amendment.
Forty-three individuals have been elected or succeeded to the office, serving a total of fifty-six four-year terms.
[. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms and is counted as both the 22nd and the 24th president. Because of this, all presidents after the 23rd have their official listing increased by one.] On January 20, 2009,
Barack Obama became the
forty-fourth, and current, president.
Origin
thumb|left|The Flag of the President of the United StatesIn 1783, the
Treaty of Paris left the United States independent and at peace, but with an unsettled governmental structure. The
Second Continental Congress had drawn up the
Articles of Confederation in 1777, describing a permanent confederation, but granting to the Congress—the only federal institution—little power to finance itself or to ensure that its resolutions were enforced. In part, this reflected the anti-
monarchy view of the Revolutionary period and the new American system was explicitly designed to prevent the rise of an American tyrant to replace the British King.
However, during the
economic depression due to the collapse of the
continental dollar following the
American Revolution, the viability of the American government was threatened by political unrest in several states, efforts by debtors to use popular government to erase their debts, and the apparent inability of the
Continental Congress to redeem the public
obligations incurred during the war. The Congress also appeared unable to become a forum for productive cooperation among the States encouraging commerce and economic development. In response a
Constitutional Convention was convened, ostensibly to reform the Articles of Confederation, but that subsequently began to draft a new system of government that would include greater executive power while retaining the checks and balances thought to be essential restraints on any imperial tendency in the office of the President.
Individuals who presided over the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary period and under the Articles of Confederation had the title "
President of the United States in Congress Assembled," often shortened to "President of the United States". The office had little distinct executive power. With the 1788 ratification of the Constitution, a separate executive branch was created, headed by the President of the United States.
A president's executive authority under the Constitution, tempered by the checks and balances of the judicial and legislative branches of the federal government, was designed to solve several political problems faced by the young nation and to anticipate future challenges, while still preventing the rise of an autocrat over a nation wary of royal authority.
Powers and duties
Article I legislative role
The first power conferred upon the President by the
U.S. Constitution is the legislative power of the presidential veto. The
Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by
Congress to be presented to the President before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the President has three options:
- Sign the legislation; the bill then becomes law.
- Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections; the bill does not become law, unless each House of Congress votes to override the veto by a two-thirds vote.
- Take no action. In this instance, the President neither signs nor vetoes the legislation. After 10 days, not counting Sundays, two possible outcomes emerge:
- * If Congress is still convened, the bill becomes law.
- * If Congress has adjourned, thus preventing the return of the legislation, the bill does not become law. This latter outcome is known as the pocket veto.
In 1996, Congress attempted to alter the President's veto power with the
Line Item Veto Act. The legislation empowered the President to sign any spending bill into law while simultaneously striking certain spending items within the bill, particularly any new spending, any amount of discretionary spending, or any new limited tax benefit. Once a president had stricken the item, Congress could pass that particular item again. If the President then vetoed the new legislation, Congress could override the veto by its ordinary means, a two-thirds vote in both houses. In
Clinton v. City of New York, , the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled such an alteration of the veto power to be unconstitutional.
Article II executive powers
War and foreign affairs powers
thumb|upright|[[Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States who successfully preserved the
Union during the
American Civil War.]]
Perhaps the most important of all presidential powers is command of the
United States armed forces as
commander-in-chief. While the power to declare war is constitutionally vested in Congress, the President commands and directs the military and is responsible for planning military strategy. The framers of the Constitution took care to limit the President's powers regarding the military;
Alexander Hamilton explains this in
Federalist No. 69: Congress, pursuant to the
War Powers Resolution, must authorize any troop deployments more than 60 days in length. Additionally, Congress provides a check to presidential military power through its control over military spending and regulation.
Along with the armed forces,
foreign policy is also directed by the President. Through the
Department of State and the
Department of Defense, the president is responsible for the protection of Americans abroad and of foreign nationals in the United States. The president decides whether to recognize new nations and new governments, and negotiates treaties with other nations, which become binding on the United States when approved by two-thirds of the Senate. The president may also negotiate "executive agreements" with foreign powers that are not subject to Senate confirmation.
Administrative powers
The President is the
chief executive of the United States, putting him at the head of the executive branch of the government, whose responsibility is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." To carry out this duty, he is given control of the four million employees of the federal executive branch.
Various executive branch appointments are made by presidents. Up to 6,000 appointments may be made by an incoming president before he takes office and 8,000 more may be made while in office.
Ambassadors, members of the
Cabinet, and other federal officers, are all appointed by a president with the "
advice and consent" of a majority of the Senate. Appointments made while the Senate is in recess are temporary and expire at the end of the next session of the Senate.
The power of a president to fire executive officials has long been a contentious point of debate. Generally, a president may remove purely executive officials at his discretion. However, Congress can curtail and constrain a president's authority to fire commissioners of independent regulatory agencies and certain inferior executive officers by statute.
Juridical powers
The President also has the power to nominate
federal judges, including members of the
United States courts of appeals and the
Supreme Court of the United States. However, these nominations do require Senate confirmation and this can provide a major stumbling block for presidents who wish to shape their federal judiciary in a particular ideological stance. The President must appoint judges for the
United States district courts, but he will often defer to
Senatorial courtesy in making these choices. He may also grant
pardons and reprieves, as is often done just before the end of a presidential term.
Executive privilege gives a president the ability to withhold information from the public, Congress, and the courts in matters of national security.
George Washington first claimed privilege when Congress requested to see
Chief Justice John Jay's notes from an unpopular treaty negotiation with
Great Britain. While not enshrined in the Constitution, or any other law, Washington's action created the precedent for the privilege. When
Richard Nixon tried to use executive privilege as a reason for not turning over subpoenaed evidence to Congress during the
Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in
United States v. Nixon, , that executive privilege did not apply in cases where a President was attempting to avoid criminal prosecution. When President
Bill Clinton attempted to use executive privilege regarding the
Lewinsky scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in
Clinton v. Jones, , that the privilege also could not be used in civil suits. These cases established the
legal precedent that executive privilege is valid, the exact extent of the privilege has yet to be clearly defined.
Legislative facilitator
thumb|left|President [[George W. Bush delivering the
2007 State of the Union Address, with
Vice President Dick Cheney and
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi behind him.]]
While the President cannot directly introduce legislation, he can play an important role in shaping it, especially if a president's political party has a majority in one or both houses of the Congress. While members of the executive branch are prohibited from simultaneously holding seats in the Congress, they often write legislation and allow a Senator or Representative to introduce it for them. The President can further influence the legislative branch through the constitutionally mandated annual report to Congress, which may be either written or oral, but in modern times is the
State of the Union address, which often outlines a president's legislative proposals for the coming year.
Pursuant to
Article II, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution, the President may convene either or both houses of the Congress. Conversely, if both houses fail to agree on a date of adjournment, the President may appoint a date for the Congress to adjourn.
Selection process
thumb|upright|George Washington, the first President of the United States of America
Eligibility
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the
Constitution sets the principal qualifications one must meet to be eligible to the office of President. A President must:
- be at least thirty-five years old;
A person who meets the above qualifications is still disqualified from holding the office of President under any of the following conditions:
- Under the Twenty-second Amendment, no eligible person can be elected President more than twice. The Twenty-second Amendment also specifies that if any eligible person who serves as President or Acting President for more than two years of a term for which some other eligible person was elected President, then the former can only be elected President once. Scholars disagree whether anyone no longer eligible to be elected President could be elected Vice President, pursuant to the qualifications set out under the Twelfth Amendment.
- Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, the Senate has the option, upon conviction, of disqualifying convicted individuals from holding other federal offices, including the Presidency.
- Under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Constitution prohibits an otherwise eligible person from becoming President if that person swore an oath to support the Constitution, and later rebelled against the United States. However, the Congress, by a two-thirds vote of each house, can remove the disqualification.
Campaigns and nomination
The modern presidential campaign begins before the
primary elections, which the two major political parties use to clear the field of candidates in advance of their
national nominating conventions, where the most successful candidate is made the party's nominee for President. Typically, the party's presidential candidate chooses a vice presidential nominee, and this choice is rubber-stamped by the convention.
Nominees participate in
nationally televised debates, and while the debates are usually restricted to the
Democratic and
Republican nominees, third party candidates may be invited, such as
Ross Perot in the 1992 debates. Nominees campaign across the country to explain their views, convince voters and solicit contributions. Much of the modern electoral process is concerned with winning
swing states through frequent visits and
mass media advertising drives.
Election and oath
thumb|250px|A map of the United States showing the number of electoral votes allocated to each state; 270 electoral votes are required for a majority out of 538 overall.
Presidents are elected
indirectly in the United States. A number of electors, collectively known as the
Electoral College, officially select the President. On
Election Day, voters in each of the states and the
District of Columbia cast ballots for these electors. Each state is allocated a number of electors, equal to the size of its delegation in both Houses of Congress combined. Generally, the ticket that wins the most votes in a state wins all of that state's electoral votes and thus has its slate of electors chosen to vote in the Electoral College.
The winning slate of electors meet at its state's capital on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, about six weeks after the election, to vote. They then send a record of that vote to Congress. The vote of the electors is opened by the sitting Vice President, acting in his capacity as
President of the Senate and read aloud to a
joint session of the incoming Congress, which was elected at the same time as the President.
Pursuant to the
Twentieth Amendment, the President's term of office begins at noon on January 20 of the year following the election. This date, known as
Inauguration Day, marks the beginning of the four-year terms of both the President and the
Vice President. Before executing the powers of the office, a president is constitutionally required to take the
presidential oath:
Although not required, presidents have traditionally used a
Bible to take oath of office and suffixed "So help me God!" to the end of the oath. Further, though no law requires that the oath of office be administered by any specific person, presidents are traditionally sworn in by the
Chief Justice of the United States.
Tenure and term limits
thumb|upright|Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four terms before the adoption of the Twenty-second Amendment.
The term of office for President and Vice President is four years. George Washington, the first president, set an unofficial precedent of serving only two terms, which subsequent presidents followed until 1940. Before
Franklin D. Roosevelt, attempts at a third term were encouraged by supporters of
Ulysses S. Grant and
Theodore Roosevelt; neither of these attempts succeeded, however. In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt declined to seek a third term, but allowed his political party to "
draft" him as their presidential candidate and was subsequently elected to a third term. In 1941, the U.S. became involved in
World War II, which later led voters to elect Roosevelt to a fourth term in 1944.
After the war, and in response to Roosevelt's shattering of precedent, the
Twenty-second Amendment was ratified, barring anyone from being elected president more than twice, or once if that person served more than half of another president's term.
Harry S. Truman, who was President when the amendment was adopted, and so by the amendment's provisions exempt from its limitation, also briefly sought a third (a second full) term before withdrawing from the
1952 election.
Since the amendment's ratification, four presidents have served two full terms:
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Ronald Reagan,
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush.
Jimmy Carter and
George H. W. Bush sought a second term, but were defeated.
Richard Nixon was elected to a second term, but resigned before completing it.
Lyndon B. Johnson was the only president under the amendment to be eligible to serve more than two terms in total, having served for only fourteen months following
John F. Kennedy's assassination. However, he chose
not to run in the 1968 election.
Gerald Ford sought a full term, after serving out the last two years and five months of Nixon's second term, but was not elected.
Vacancy or disability
Vacancies in the office of President may arise under several possible circumstances: death, resignation and
removal from office.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution allows the House of Representatives to impeach high federal officials, including the President, for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 gives the Senate the power to remove impeached officials from office, given a two-thirds vote to convict. Two Presidents have thus far been impeached by the House,
Andrew Johnson in 1868 and
Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither was subsequently convicted by the Senate; however, Johnson was acquitted by just one vote.
Under Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the President may transfer the presidential powers and duties to the Vice President, who then becomes
Acting President, by transmitting a statement to the
Speaker of the House and the
President pro tempore of the Senate stating the reasons for the transfer. The President resumes the discharge of the presidential powers and duties when he transmits, to those two officials, a written declaration stating that resumption. This transfer of power may occur for any reason the President considers appropriate; in 2002 and again in 2007, President
George W. Bush briefly transferred Presidential authority to Vice President
Dick Cheney. In both cases, this was done to accommodate a medical procedure which required Bush to be sedated; Bush returned to duty later the same day.
Under Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the Vice President and a majority of the
Cabinet may transfer the presidential powers and duties from the President to the Vice President once they transmit to the Speaker of the House and the President
pro tempore of the Senate a statement declaring the President's incapacity to discharge the presidential powers and duties. If this occurs, then the Vice President will assume the presidential powers and duties as Acting President; however, the President can declare that no such inability exists and resume the discharge of the presidential powers and duties. If the Vice President and Cabinet contest this claim, it is up to Congress, which must meet within two days if not already in session, to decide the merit of the claim.
The United States Constitution mentions the resignation of the President but does not regulate the form of such a resignation or the conditions for its validity. By Act of Congress, the only valid evidence of the President's decision to resign is a written instrument declaring the resignation signed by the President and delivered to the office of the
Secretary of State. On August 9, 1974, facing likely impeachment in the midst of the
Watergate scandal,
Richard Nixon became the only President ever to resign from office. Just before his resignation, the
House Judiciary Committee had reported favorably on articles of impeachment against him.
The Constitution states that the Vice President becomes President upon the removal from office, death or resignation of the preceding President. If the offices of President and Vice President both are either vacant or have a disabled holder of that office, the next officer in the Presidential line of succession, the Speaker of the House, becomes Acting President. The line extends to the President pro tempore of the Senate after the Speaker, followed by every member of the Cabinet in a set order.
Compensation
The President earns a $400,000 annual salary, along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 non-taxable travel account and $19,000 for entertainment.
[. Howstuffworks. Retrieved July 24, 2007.][. United States Senate website. Retrieved August 6, 2009.] The most recent raise in salary was approved by Congress and President
Bill Clinton in 1999 and went into effect in 2001.
The
White House in
Washington, D.C. serves as the official place of residence for the President; he is entitled to use its staff and facilities, including medical care, recreation, housekeeping, and security services. Naval Support Facility Thurmont, popularly known as
Camp David, is a mountain based military camp in Frederick County, Maryland used as a country retreat and for high alert protection of the President and his guests.
Blair House, located adjacent to the
Old Executive Office Building at the White House Complex and
Lafayette Park, is a complex of four connected townhouses exceeding 70,000 square feet of floor space which serves as the President's official guest house and as a secondary residence for the President if needed.
For ground travel, the president uses the
Presidential State Car, which is an armored
limousine built on a heavily modified
Cadillac-based
chassis.
[ US Secret Service Press Release (January 14, 2009) Retrieved on 2009-01-20] One of two identical
Boeing VC-25 aircraft, which are extensively modified versions of
Boeing 747-200B airliners, serve as long distance travel for the President, and are referred to as
Air Force One while the president is on board.
[. White House Military Office. Retrieved June 17, 2007.] The president also uses a
United States Marine Corps helicopter, designated
Marine One when the president is aboard.
The
United States Secret Service is charged with protecting the sitting President and his family. As part of their protection, Presidents,
First Ladies, their children and other immediate family members, and other prominent persons and locations are assigned
Secret Service codenames.
The use of such names was originally for security purposes and dates to a time when sensitive electronic communications were not routinely encrypted; today, the names simply serve for purposes of brevity, clarity and tradition.
File:WhiteHouseSouthFacade.JPG|The White House
File:Camp David.jpg|Camp David
File:Blair House daylight.jpg|Blair House
File:GPA02-09 US SecretService press release 2009 Limousine Page 3 Image.jpg|Presidential State Car
File:Air Force One over Mt. Rushmore.jpg|Air Force One
File:Marine One (1970).jpg|Marine OnePost-presidency
thumb|Presidents [[Gerald Ford,
Richard Nixon,
George H. W. Bush,
Ronald Reagan and
Jimmy Carter dedicate the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in 1991.]]
Beginning in 1959, all living former presidents were granted a pension, an office and a staff. The pension has increased numerous times with Congressional approval. Retired presidents now receive a pension based on the salary of the current administration's cabinet secretaries, which is $191,300 as of 2008. Some former Presidents have also collected
congressional pensions. The
Former Presidents Act, as amended, also provides former presidents with travel funds and
franking privileges.
Until 1997, all former presidents, and their families, were protected by the Secret Service until the president's death. The last president to have lifetime Secret Service protection is
Bill Clinton; George W. Bush and all subsequent Presidents will be protected by the Secret Service for a maximum of ten years after leaving office.
Some presidents have had significant careers after leaving office. Prominent examples include
William Howard Taft's tenure as
Chief Justice of the United States and
Herbert Hoover's work on government reorganization after
World War II.
Grover Cleveland, whose bid for reelection failed in 1888, was elected president again four years later in 1892. Two former presidents served in Congress after leaving the White House;
John Quincy Adams was elected to the
House of Representatives, serving there for seventeen years, and
Andrew Johnson returned to the Senate in 1875.
John Tyler served in the provisional
Congress of the Confederate States during the
Civil War and was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died before it convened. More recently,
Richard Nixon made multiple foreign trips to countries including China and Russia, and was lauded as an elder statesman.
Jimmy Carter has become a global
human rights campaigner, international arbiter and election monitor, and a recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize.
Bill Clinton has taken on some work as an
'elder statesman', most notable for his involvement in the negotiations that led to the release of two American
Journalists,
Laura Ling and
Euna Lee from
North Korea. Bill Clinton has also been active politically since his presidential term ended, working with his wife,
Hillary Clinton on her
presidential bid.
Presidential libraries
Each President since
Herbert Hoover has created a repository known as a
presidential library for preserving and making available his papers, records and other documents and materials. Completed libraries are deeded to and maintained by the
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); the initial funding for building and equipping each library must come from private, non-federal sources. There are currently thirteen presidential libraries in the NARA system. There are also a number of presidential libraries maintained by state governments and private foundations, such as the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which is run by the State of
Illinois.
Currently there are four living former Presidents:
File:Jimmy Carter Crop.jpg|Jimmy Carter (D), served 1977-1981
File:George H. W. Bush, President of the United States, 1989 official portrait cropped.jpg|George H. W. Bush (R), served 1989-1993
File:Bill Clinton.jpg|Bill Clinton (D), served 1993-2001
File:George-W-Bush.jpeg|George W. Bush (R), served 2001-2009
See also
