Chapter 12 Presidency Vocab

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national security council

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an office created in 1947 to coordinate the president's foreign and military policy advisors. Its formal members are the president, Vice President, secretary of defense, and it is managed by the president's national security assistant.

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Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

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an office that grew out of the Bureau of the Budget, created in 1921, consisting of a handful of political appointees and hundreds of skilled professionals. it performs both managerial and budgetary functions

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pocket veto

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Veto taking place when congress adjourns within 10 days of submitting a bill to the president, who simply lets it die by neither signing nor vetoing it.

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presidential coattails

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these occur when voters cast their ballots for congressional candidates of the president's party because they support the president.

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rescission

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presidential recommendations to cut parts of appropriation bills; a 1996 law allows the president's rescission to go into effect unless they are overridden by a two-thirds vote in Congress.

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United States v. Nixon

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held the president's claim of executive privilege to preserve the confidentiality of his conversations with members of his staff or others does not justify withholding information bearing on a pending criminal trial (Watergate tapes).

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War Powers Resolution Act

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a United States Congress joint resolution providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by the authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. the War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war.

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White House office

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presidential staff who oversee the policy interests of the president

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Budget Reform Act (1974)

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a congressional effort to control presidential impoundments. it requires, among other things, that the president spend all appropriated funds unless he first tells Congress which funds he wishes not to spend and Congress, within 45 days, agrees to delete the items.

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Clinton v. New York City

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the Supreme Court ruled that the line item veto was unconstitutional as it gave legislative powers to the president

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Council of Economic Advisors

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a three-member body appointed to the president to advise the president on economic policy.

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divided government

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a government in which one party controls the White House and another party controls one or both houses of Congress

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Executive agencies

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administrative agencies that exist within the executive branch of the government, often at the cabinet level. they serve at the pleasure of the president and can be removed at his discretion.

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Executive Office of the President

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an organization established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to assist the president in carrying out major duties.

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executive privilege

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an implied presidential power that allows the president to refuse to disclose information regarding confidential conversations or national security to congress or the judiciary.

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impeachment

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the power delegated to the House of Representatives in the Constitution to charge the president, Vice President, or other "civil officers", including federal judges, with "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." this is the first step in the constitutional process of removing such government officials from office.

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impoundment

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a traditional budgeting procedure by which the President of the United States once could prevent any agency of the Executive Branch from spending part or all of the money previously appropriated by Congress for their use. He would accomplish this, in essence, by an executive order that would forbid the Treasury to transfer the money in question to the agency's account. (The Constitution provides that no money from the treasury can be spent without a specific congressional appropriation, but it is silent on the question of whether all money appropriated by congress actually has to be spent.) all American presidents since John Adams asserted the right to impound appropriated funds, and president's often used this as a way of making relatively small cuts in federal spending on programs that they deemed unwise or unnecessary. in 1973-1974, however, president Nixon made unusually serious inflationary pressures of the time by trimming back the budget deficit. president Nixon impounded nearly $12 billion of Congressional appropriations, which represented something over 4% of the spending Congress had appropriated for the coming fiscal year.

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independent agencies

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federal agencies that are part of the Executive branch but outside the structure of the cabinet departments. their heads typically serve fixed terms of office and can be removed only for cause.

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lame duck

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a politician whose power has been diminished because they are about to leave office as a result of electoral defeat or statutory limitation.

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legislative veto

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a method by which Congress in a law allows either one or both houses to block a proposed executive action. it is frequently used for presidential reorganization plans of the executive branch. these vetoes were declared unconstitutional in INS v. CHADHA 1981.

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line-item veto

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a special form of veto in which the chief executive has the right to prevent particular provisions of a bill enacted by a legislative assembly from becoming law without having to kill all the other parts of the bill at the same time. presidents Nixon, ford, Reagan, bush, and Clinton all have endorsed the idea of granting the president line-item veto powers over appropriations bills as a means of controlling the budget deficit problem, but the president of the United States has only recently acquired a very limited line-item veto power through certain changes in the rules of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even this limited form of line-item veto enacted by a simple congressional majority was unconstitutional because it violates the concept of separation of powers.