The power to pardon is another constitutional power where presidents may pardon those charged with crimes. For instance, very famously Clinton pardoned 140 people on his last day in office and Bush over eight years pardoned 189 people. However in analysis despite the next to no checks apart from public opinion or restrictions on this power which some would therefore say makes the presidency a powerful office, the breadth of the impact is very small, impacting really on only those who are pardoned. Compare this with the power of commander in chief, and it then seems fairly insignificant. Lastly, vetoing legislation or even the threat of a veto is a powerful presidential power. Altogether from Washington to George.W.Bush there have been around 1500 regular vetoes. Whilst some may say that these can be overridden by Congress, they can but it is rare. W.Bush had the third lowest successful veto rate of any president and that was still 63.3% success rate.
In evaluation we can see that even without covering all of the constitutional powers, the presidency has several extremely powerful powers at his hands given by the constitution, suggesting that in these areas it is a powerful office, however the weaknesses of the constitutional powers must be explored before making a judgement on whether these powers are as significant as they appear to be.
Many would say however, that the weaknesses of the presidencies constitutional powers are more significant, suggesting that these powers do not make the presidency a powerful office. For instance when Obama looked to foreign policy for possible success as most presidents do when domestic issues are not going so well, he did not enjoy as much success as he hoped. For example despite his constitutional treaty making powers he failed to complete the free trade agreement with S.Korea, failed to get currency policy changed in China and European countries were not persuaded to increase government spending as a means of growth. This shows that perhaps the president’s treaty making powers are not as significant as they appear at first glance. The New Start treaty which would have reduced nuclear weapons was stalled in the Senate. Congress also blocked the global warming cap and trade bill as well as immigration reform stuck in the Senate. This demonstrates whilst the constitutional powers of treaty making, Congress has a large part to say and thus questions the importance of this constitutional power. The president’s power to nominate executive branch officials is also limited which could suggest that the presidency is less powerful in these areas. This power is limited due to the Senate having to confirm all these appointments by a majority vote. When the Senate is controlled by the opposition party, many would say that the president’s power is greatly reduced. In analysis this brings up a theory that the president is neither stagnantly powerful or not, but his power fluctuates with various factors, one being party control of Congress. Similarly executive orders and pardons are perhaps not as significant as they first appear, due to them as well being in the public eye, thus presidents may not be able to carry out certain executive orders depending on the mood of the public, thus limits these powers greatly.
The other ‘side’ of the presidencies powers are those inherent powers, those which are not written in the constitution and as with the constitutional powers, there are examples which could suggest the presidency as a powerful office when exercising these powers. For instance one inherent power of the president is that of using the bully pulpit, where by the president will effectively address the public directly, most usually through television announcements on certain issues. By doing this he is using this inherent power to go over the heads of Congress and hopefully getting the public on his side, resulting in more public pressure supporting the president forcing Congress to perform a particular way. An example of this is very recently with Obama addressing the public on TV about increases in taxes and the ‘fiscal cliff’, which he does not and wants the public support which may affect Congress’ vote on the issue. Not only this but after the extremely recent school shooting in Connecticut, many expect Obama to use this inherent power to put across his stance on the issue ‘using the bully pulpit’, trying to get the publics opinion on side with him, so he may be able to pass some form of legislation on gun control in Congress, despite being such a heated issue in US politics with much opposition of gun control.
Another inherent power which arguably makes the presidency a powerful office is his legislative powers, not the veto which is a constitutional power but those to influence legislation, propose it, persuade etc…Perhaps to demonstrate how this power could maybe be an indicator that the presidency is a powerful office is look at Obama’s legislative success. For instance his flagship policy on healthcare reform with Biden describing it as a “big f***** deal!”. Also financial regulation and legislation over gays in the military would suggest that despite the apparent restraints of legislative powers of the president, that they can be effective in this area, and thus supports the view of a powerful office. George W.Bush was also fairly successful managing to, again despite both houses, enact a lot of his major policy agenda, such as new antiterrorism laws, education bill, tax cuts three times, establishment of homeland security department to name a few. This demonstrates that although Congress has the power to formulate legislation and play a huge part in the success, the president seems to exploit these inherent powers to great success in numerous examples. This leads onto the inherent power of “the power of persuasion” ,which does include several others such as the Bully Pulpit and national leadership, where due to the presidents position, status etc… he can use persuasion to obtain his desired result on an issue, whether legislative or personal. W.Bush had numerous examples of using this inherent power to his advantage, showing how he was powerful in this regard. For instance strong national leadership and accompanying bully pulpit in crisis situations which helped him pass the Patriot’s Act and anti terrorist measures. Also offers of ‘pork’ to Senators from oil and gas producing states to help his energy package. In evaluation it is clear, again whilst not covering all of the presidents inherent powers, that he can use them, and has very effectively suggesting that it is in fact a rather powerful office.
On the other hand there is a sound argument to support the opposite view, that the presidency is not a powerful office, and more specifically in this case, the inherent powers are more insignificant than some may think. Perhaps the main weakness of these inherent powers are that they depend so much on other factors rather than the constitutional powers which are there, written down and can be used whenever. Of course public opinion does come into play even when exploiting constitutional powers, but more so with inherent powers. The presidency may not be able to use the Bully Pulpit for instance at times of unpopularity such as later stages of W.Bush’s reign after controversy of the Iraq war. Similarly many saw Obama’s State of the Union Address as a failure and this which usually sets out the presidents political agenda. This falls under the chief legislator inherent power and thus after a ‘failed’ state of the union address this could affect the power of persuasion, the agenda setting and national leader inherent powers.
In evaluation it seems that although the inherent powers of the presidency are varied and powerful in certain circumstances they all rely of the power of persuasion and external factors, which means that not all of the time they will have the same power ‘behind them’.
In conclusion the presidency has a lot of powers both constitutional and inherent which at certain times can make the office extremely powerful. However it cannot be said that the office is or isn’t powerful, as the power fluctuates so much with external factors such as the public opinion, meaning that the presidency is at times a very powerful office as shown through examples previously, but equally can be a rather lame office at other times.