CHAPTER TEn • THE PREsidEnCy 227
Chief Executive
The role of the
president as head of
the executive branch
of the government.
Civil Service
A collective term for the
body of employees
working for the govern-
ment. Generally, civil
service is understood to
apply to all those who gain
government employment
through a merit system.
Appointment Power
The authority vested in
the president to fill a
government office or
position.
Reprieve
A formal postponement
of the execution of a
sentence imposed by a
court of law.
Pardon
A release from the
punishment for, or legal
consequences of, a crime.
A pardon can be granted
by the president before or
after a conviction.the president deal with Congress over proposed legislation and increases the chances of
being reelected—or getting the candidates of the president’s party elected.Chief Executive
According to the Constitution, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America.... [H]e may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal
Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties
of their respective Offices... and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and
Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... Officers of the United States.... [H]e shall take
Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
As chief executive, the president is constitutionally bound to enforce the acts of
Congress, the judgments of federal courts, and treaties signed by the United States.
The duty to “faithfully execute” the laws has been a source of constitutional power for
presidents.The Powers of Appointment and Removal. To assist in the various tasks of the chief
executive, the president has a federal bureaucracy, which currently consists of 2.1 mil-
lion federal civilian employees, not counting the U.S. Postal Service (522,000 employees).
You might think that the president, as head of the largest bureaucracy in the United
States, wields enormous power. The president, however, only nominally runs the execu-
tive bureaucracy. Most government positions are filled by civil service employees, who
generally gain government employment through a merit system rather than presidential
appointment.^2 Therefore, even though the president has important appointment power,
it is limited to cabinet and subcabinet jobs, federal judgeships, agency heads, and several
thousand lesser jobs—about eight thousand positions in total. This means that most of the
2.6 million employees of the executive branch owe no political allegiance to the president.
They are more likely to owe loyalty to congressional committees or to interest groups rep-
resenting the sector of society that they serve.
The president’s power to remove from office those officials who are not doing a good
job or who do not agree with the president is not explicitly granted by the Constitution
and has been limited. In 1926, however, a Supreme Court decision prevented Congress
from interfering with the president’s ability to fire those executive-branch officials whom
the president had appointed with Senate approval.^3
Harry Truman spoke candidly of the difficulties a president faces in trying to control
the executive bureaucracy. On leaving office, he referred to the problems that Dwight
Eisenhower, as a former general of the army, was going to have: “He’ll sit here and he’ll
say do this! do that! and nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the Army.
He’ll find it very frustrating.”^4The Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons. Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution
gives the president the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the
United States except in cases of impeachment. All pardons are administered by the Office
of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice.- See Chapter 11 for a discussion of the Civil Service Reform Act.
- Meyers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926).
- Quoted in Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: Wiley,
1960), p. 9. Truman may not have considered the amount of politics involved in decision making
in the upper reaches of the army.
Copyright 2014 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.