Presentation Pro
Magruder’s
American Government
Executive Branch
5.1 (Topic 5 Lesson 1)
5.2 (Topic 5 Lesson 2)
© 2001 by Prentice Hall, Inc.
The President’s Roles
Chief of State
• The President is chief of state. This means he is the ceremonial head of
the government of the United States, the symbol of all the people of the
nation.
• Ceremonial head of government
Chief Executive
• The Constitution vests the President with the executive power of the
United States, making him or her the nation’s chief executive.
• Practical limits are set on the President’s power by checks and balances.
Chief Administrator
• The President is the chief administrator, or director, of the United
States government.
• Director of the huge executive branch.
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Chapter 13, Section 1
More Roles of the President
Chief Diplomat
• As the nation’s chief diplomat, the President is the main architect of
American foreign policy and chief spokesperson to the rest of the world.
Commander in Chief
• The Constitution makes the President the commander in chief, giving
him or her complete control of the nation’s armed forces.
Chief Legislator
• The President is the chief legislator, the main architect of the nation’s
public policies.
• Most often it is the President that sets the overall shape of the
congressional agenda.
• Sometimes clashes with Congress and does not always get his way.
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Chapter 13, Section 1
More Roles of the President
Chief Economist
•
•
•
President is expected to keep a close eye on the nation’s economy
Has to balance conflicting demands---consumers,labor unions, and manufacturers
Has to be sensitive to how economic policies will impact relationships with other
countries.
Chief of Party
• The President acts as the chief of party, the acknowledged leader of the political
party that controls the executive branch.
YouTube Clip (examples of
roles)
Chief Citizen
• The President is expected to be “the representative of all the people.”
• He is supposed to work for an represent the public interest against the many
different and competing private interests.
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Qualifications for President
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, of the Constitution
says that the President must:
1. Be “a natural born
citizen.”
2. Be at least 35 years of
age.
3. Have lived in the United
States for at least 14 years.
Informal qualifications, such as
intelligence and character, are also
important considerations.
 A person must be born a citizen
of the United States to be able
to become President.
 A person born abroad to
American citizens is legally an
American citizen.

 Any 14 years of the
individual’s life.
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 John F. Kennedy at age 43 was
the youngest person to be
elected President.
 Reagan the oldest at 69
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Chapter 13, Section 1
The President’s Term
•
•
•
Until 1951, the Constitution placed no limit on the number of
terms a President might serve.
Traditionally, Presidents limited the number of terms served to
two. This tradition was broken by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940
when he ran for and won a third term in office.
The 22nd Amendment placed limits on presidential terms.
• Each President may now serve a maximum of two full terms
(8 years in office).
• A President who succeeds to the office after the mid-point in
a term could possibly serve more than 8 years
• The President may finish out the predecessor’s term and then seek
two full terms of his or her own.
***the maximum number of years a President can serve is 10***
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Chapter 13, Section 1
Term Limits Fair?
• Some people (and former Presidents) argue
that the two-term rule is undemocratic.
• Places limits on the people to decide who should be
President.
• Propose an unlimited number of four-year terms.
• Several Presidents have urged a single six-year
term
• Argue a single, nonrenewable term would free a
President from the pressures of a campaign for a second
term which would allow the President to focus on the
pressing demands of the office.
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The Constitution and Succession
•
•
•
Presidential succession is
the plan by which a
presidential vacancy is filled.
The 25th Amendment, ratified
in 1967, made it clear that the
Vice President will become
President if the President is
removed from office.
The Presidential
Succession Act of 1947 set
the order of succession
following the Vice President.
•United States presidential
line of succession
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Chapter 13, Section 2
Presidential Disability
•
•
Sections 3 and 4 of the 25th Amendment provide procedures to
follow when the President is disabled.
The Vice President is to become acting President if (Disability
Gap)
(1) the President informs Congress, in writing, “that he is unable
to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” or
(2) the Vice President and a majority of the members of the
Cabinet inform Congress, in writing, that the President is thus
incapacitated.
A President whose duties have been temporarily assumed by
the VP may reclaim his or her office by informing Congress
that he or she is not longer disabled, provided the VP and a
majority of the Cabinet do not challenge his or her decision.
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Chapter 13, Section 2
Presidential Disability Scenario
The President is hurt in a serious accident. He is unable to speak. After
recovering, the President believes that he is ready to resume his duties,
but the Vice President and Cabinet members disagree.
Put the steps in the order necessary to address the situation:
1) Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet challenge the President on his
declaration of health.
2) Vice President becomes Acting President.
3) Congress has 21 days in which to make a decision.
4) Vice President and majority of Cabinet inform Congress in writing that the
President is incapacitated.
5) President resumes the powers and duties of the office.
6) President informs Congress by “written declaration” that no disability exists.
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Answers For Scenario
• VP and majority of Cabinet inform Congress in writing
that the President is incapacitated (4)
• VP becomes acting President ((2)
• President informs Congress by “written declaration”
that no disability exists (6)
• President resumes the powers and duties of the office
(5)
• VP and majority of Cabinet challenge the President (1)
• Congress has 21 days in which to make a decision (3)
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The Vice Presidency
•
The Constitution only gives the Vice President two duties besides
becoming President if the President is removed from office:
1) to preside over the Senate, and
2) to help decide the question of presidential disability.
•
•
•
•
If the office of Vice President becomes vacant, the President
nominates a new Vice President subject to the approval of
Congress. (has happened 18 times in our history….9 times by
succession to the presidency, 2 by resignation, 7 times by death)
The VP cannot be removed from office by the President
Today, the Vice President often performs diplomatic and political
chores for the President. (Atomic bomb-Harry Truman no clue about
it when he took over for FDR)
Presidential candidates try to choose vice-presidential candidates
who will help “balance the ticket” politically.
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Chapter 13, Section 2
Into the Oval Office
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Chapter 13, Section 2
Presentation Pro
Magruder’s
American Government
Executive Branch
11.3 (Topic 11 Lesson 3)
© 2001 by Prentice Hall, Inc.
Presidential Primaries
•
Depending on the State (can be either or both of these two
things), a presidential primary is an election in which a party’s
voters
(1) choose some or all of a State’s party organization’s
delegates to their party’s national convention, and/or
(2) express a preference among various contenders for their
party’s presidential nomination.
•
Understanding the primary process is difficult for 2 reasons
1) In each State the details of the delegate-selection
process are set by State law---and those details vary
from State to State
2)The ongoing reform efforts in the Democratic Party
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Chapter 13, Section 4
Significance of Primary Timing
• New Hampshire has a State law that makes sure
they will always be the first primary in the country.
• Primary schedule used to be heavily “front-loaded”
(most primaries took place before mid-March--favored the “popular” candidates)
• Movement lately is to stretch the primary elections
out more---helps the “underdogs” gain momentum.
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Primary Styles
•
•
•
Winner-Take All: the candidate who won the preference vote
automatically won the support of all of the delegates chosen at
the primary (Not used very often today in States….The
Democrats have banned them nationwide…still used sparingly
by Republican parties in States)
Many States use proportional representation (instead of
winner-take-all) to select delegates. In this system, a proportion
of a State’s delegates are chosen to match voter preferences in
the primary.
More than half of the States hold preference primaries where
voters choose their preference for a candidate. Delegates are
selected later to match voter preferences.
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Primary Process For Party in Power vs.
Party out of Power
•
Party in power
• If an incumbent (someone who currently has the position
and is seeking re-election) President wants to seek re-election,
his or her nomination is almost guaranteed.
• If the outgoing President doesn’t have another term—he/she
throws their support to one of the candidates in his/her party and
that person tends to win the nomination.
•
Party out of power
• “knock-down drag-out”---because there is no defined leader in
the party
• Can cause a party to splinter
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Primary Reform Proposals
Problem:
•
Since so many States hold presidential primaries it places
great demands on the candidates in terms of time, effort,
money, scheduling and fatigue.
Proposed Solutions:
•
•
each major party should hold a single, nationwide presidential primary
A series of region primaries, held at two-or three-week intervals in
groups of States across the country.
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The Caucus-Convention Process
•
•
•
•
In those States that do not hold presidential primaries,
delegates to the national conventions are chosen in a
system of caucuses and conventions.
The party’s voters meet in local caucuses where they
choose delegates to a local or district convention, where
delegates to the State convention are picked.
At the State level, and sometimes in the district
conventions, delegates to the national convention are
chosen.
Iowa’s Caucus gets the greatest attention because it is
the first (takes place even before New Hampshire’s
primary)
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Chapter 13, Section 4
The Role of Conventions
Convention
Arrangements
•
•
The Apportionment and
Selection of Delegates
•
Parties apportion the number of
delegates each State will receive
based on electoral votes and its
record in recent elections.
The convention system
has been mainly run by the
two major parties in
• Delegates are selected through both
American politics.
Party national committees
arrange the time and place
for their party’s nominating
convention.
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presidential primaries and the
caucus-convention process
•
•
2012 Republicans had 2,286
delegates and Democrats had 5,552
The amount of delegates each State
gets varies from State to State and
from party to party.
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Chapter 13, Section 4
Superdelegates
•
•
•
•
•
Created by the Democratic Party and only allotted by the Democrats.
Superdelegates are party officers and Democrats who hold major
elective public offices (govs., senators, representatives etc.) and
other party activists.
Not bound to represent the popular vote (the people’s vote)…..can
support whichever candidate they want to.
Democrats have changed their rules after the 2016 convention so
now 2/3rds of “superdelegates” are bound to the results of their state
primaries and Caucuses. The other 1/3 are still able to support
whatever candidate they choose.
Are they fair???
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The National Convention
•
A party’s national convention is the meeting at which delegates
vote to pick their presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
Party conventions accomplish three main goals:
(1) to officially name the party’s presidential and vice-presidential
candidates,
(2) to bring the various factions and the leading personalities in the
party together in one place for a common purpose, and
(3) to adopt the party’s platform—its formal statement of basic
principles, stands on major policy matters, and objectives for the
campaign and beyond.
Keynote Address: delivered by one of the party’s most
accomplished speakers. Usually used to kick off the convention
(our party is awesome, theirs isn’t, we are going to have a
landslide victory……..)
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Chapter 13, Section 4
Who Is Nominated?
•
•
•
If an incumbent (someone who currently has the
position and is seeking re-election) President wants
to seek re-election, his or her nomination is almost
guaranteed.
Political experience factors into the nomination
process. State governors, the executive officers on the
State level, have historically been favored for
nomination. U.S. senators also have fared well.
Many candidates come from key larger states.
Candidates from larger states, such as California, New
York, and Ohio, have usually been seen as more
electable than candidates from smaller states.
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Chapter 13, Section 4
The Presidential Campaign
•
•
•
•
Swing voters: people who haven’t made up their minds yet
Battleground States: those States in which the outcome is “too
close to call”
Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates are held throughout the
campaign (first one in 1960 Richard Nixon and JFK)
Commission on Presidential Debates makes it nearly impossible for
3rd party or independent candidates to be eligible for debates
because
• 1) Participants must be party-nominated candidates who are
supported by at least 15% of respondents in five national polls
• 2) They must be listed on the ballot of States, which taken
together, will cast at least a majority (270) electoral votes in the
upcoming election
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Original Provisions of the Electoral College
•
•
presidential electors
(expected to use their
own judgment and cast
their votes as “free
agents”)
Originally, these electors
each cast two electoral
votes, each for a different
candidate. The candidate
with the most votes would
become President, and
the candidate with the
second highest total
would become Vice
President.
The Framer’s Plan for the Electoral College
1) Each state would have as many presidential electors as it
has senators and representatives in Congress
2) The electors would be chosen in each State in a manner the
State legislature directed.
3) The electors, meeting in their own States, would each cast
two votes---each for a different person for president.
4) These electoral votes from the States would be opened and
counted before a joint session of Congress.
5) The person receiving the largest number of electoral
votes, provided that total was a majority of all the electors,
would become president.
6) The person with the second highest number of electoral
votes would become Vice President
7) If a tie occurred, or if no one received the votes of a
majority of the electors, the President would be chosen by
the House of Representatives, voting by States.
8) If a tie occurred for the second spot, the Vice President would
be chosen by the Senate.
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Chapter 13, Section 3
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Electoral College Today (thanks to
the formation of political parties)
Each State is granted the number of electors that is equal to the number of
people they have serving in Congress (SD has 2 senators, 1 member in the
HOR= 3 electors). This is the same as the Framer’s intended
The electoral votes are automatically cast in each State for the “ticket” that
the majority of the people in the State vote for (popular vote). No longer are
the electors “free agents”
All States but Maine and Nebraska give their electoral votes on a winner-takeall basis (if a candidate is even one vote short in a state his/her opponent will
get all of the electoral votes that state is allotted)
The electors meet at their State Capital on the second Wednesday in
December to cast their electoral votes (even though we have known since the
election in November what the electoral vote will be)
A candidate must win 270 electoral votes to become President
If a candidate fails to get 270, the election gets decided by the House of
Representatives (each State getting one vote)
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Casting a ballot for Electors….not the
candidates themselves. (2016 Ballot)
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Flaws in the Electoral College
There are three major defects in the
electoral college:
(1) It is possible to win the popular vote in the presidential election, but
lose the electoral college vote. This has happened four times in U.S.
history (1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000).
(2) Nothing in the Constitution, nor in any federal statute, requires
the electors to vote for the candidate favored by the popular vote
in their State (Faithless Elector)
(3) If no candidate gains a majority in the electoral college 270), the
election is thrown into the House (where they choose between
the top two candidates), a situation that has happened twice
(1800 and 1824).
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Chapter 13, Section 5
3 Objections to the Election Being
Decided by the House of Representatives
• A State with a small population would carry as
much weight in the decision as States with large
populations.
• If a State’s representatives were so divided that no
candidate was favored by a majority, that State
would lose its vote.
• The Constitution requires a candidate gain the
support of a majority of the States (26). If a strong
3rd party candidate is involved…..the HOR might
struggle to elect a President by Inauguration Day.
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Proposed Reforms for Electoral College
District Plan
• How it works
• Two electors are chosen from each State at large and
cast votes in accordance with statewide popular vote.
• All other delegates are elected separately from State’s
congressional districts
•
Flaws
• The winner of the popular vote may not win the electoral
vote.
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Proposed Reforms of Electoral College
Proportional Plan
• How it works
• Candidates would receive the same percentage
of a State’s electoral vote as he or she receives
in the State’s popular vote.
• Flaws
• The election may not produce a clear winner,
and third parties would gain power.
• Weaken the two-party system
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Proposed Reforms to Electoral College
Direct Popular Election
•
How it works
• The electoral college would be scrapped and the President and Vice
President would be elected by direct popular vote.
•
Flaws
• It requires a Constitutional amendment
• It would weaken federalism
• Small states would oppose it
• Might not produce a clear winner
• A truly national campaign would cost even more than the present
system.
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Proposed Reforms to Electoral College
National Popular Vote Plan
•
How it works
• Calls upon each State’s lawmaking body to (1) amend the State’s
election laws to provide that all of the State’s electoral votes are to
be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote and (2) enter
into an interstate compact, the Agreement Among the States to Elect
the President by National Popular Vote.
•
Flaws
• No real flaws
• Plan has gained a lot of attention because it appears to satisfy the
major objections of the current system and doesn’t require any
change to the Constitution.
• National Popular Vote Website
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Electoral College Supporters
There are 3 major strengths of the electoral
college according to supporters:
• It is a known process.
Each of the proposed,
but untried, reforms
may very well have
defects that could not
be known until they
appeared in practice.
• In most election years,
the electoral college
defines the winner of
the presidential
election quickly and
certainly.
• Promotes the nation’s
two-party system
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Chapter 13, Section 5