Presidency and Congress II (A Lot of Lyndon)

 For Monday, read Edwards ch. 12.  (slightly abbreviated class on Wed.)

What is a mandate  (Edwards 377-378)

Coattails work when POTUS helps pull party members over the finish line:  1932, 1964, 1980.    But there are very few marginal members anymore.  

And a problem for bipartisan outreach. Reagan passed his program with help from Southern Democrats in Reagan districts. But there are few split districts or states anymore:

The midterm slump (Edwards 371-373)

Pressuring copartisans:

FDR 1938 "purge" (start at 4:00) -- not very successful

Overt threats and retribution.

1. Republicans who lost primaries after opposing Trump U.S. House

Member	State	Year	Reason / Context
Liz Cheney	Wyoming	2022	Lost GOP primary after voting to impeach Trump and serving as vice-chair of the Jan. 6 committee.
Jaime Herrera Beutler	Washington	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; eliminated in the 2022 “jungle” primary amid pro-Trump challenges.
Tom Rice	South Carolina	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; defeated by Trump-backed challenger Russell Fry.
Peter Meijer	Michigan	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; defeated in GOP primary by Trump-backed John Gibbs.
Mark Sanford	South Carolina	2018	Prominent Trump critic; lost primary to Trump-endorsed challenger Katie Arrington.
Bob Good	Virginia	2024	Initially backed Ron DeSantis instead of Trump in the presidential primary and lost to Trump-endorsed challenger John McGuire.

2. Republicans who retired rather than run again amid conflict with Trump

U.S. House

Member	State	Year	Notes
Adam Kinzinger	Illinois	2022	One of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 committee; chose not to seek reelection.
Anthony Gonzalez	Ohio	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; announced retirement citing political toxicity and threats.
Fred Upton	Michigan	2022	Impeachment vote; retired after intense pro-Trump backlash.
John Katko	New York	2022	Impeachment vote; retired amid expected Trump-aligned primary challenge.
Paul Ryan	Wisconsin	2018	As Speaker, clashed with Trump on several issues and chose to retire rather than seek reelection.

U.S. Senate

Member	State	Year	Notes
Jeff Flake	Arizona	2018	Frequent Trump critic; announced retirement saying the party was abandoning conservative principles.
Bob Corker	Tennessee	2018	Openly clashed with Trump and retired rather than run again.
Ben Sasse	Nebraska	2022	Long-time Trump critic; left the Senate to become president of the University of Florida.
Thom Tillis	North Carolina	2026	Announced retirement after conflict with Trump and backlash from MAGA activists.

Bargainng

LBJ wants Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH) to vote for a farm bill.  Hays wants the Department of Agriculture action on freight rates. 

• LBJ is willing to deal.
• LBJ then calls Secretary of Agriculture Freeman to seal the deal.

Civil Rights

Why did LBJ want it?

The 1957 bill and "the long game"

• Civil rights strategy
• LBJ presidential strategy

Policy Window for 1964

• March on Washington
• Birmingham killings
• JFK assassination

The outside game

• Working the civil rights establishment
• Working the press (Kay Graham, about 45% through)

The inside game

• Working via AG Kennedy (whom he hated)
• Working with the GOP House leader

President and Congress I

 For Wednesday:

• Ted Gittinger and Allen Fisher, "LBJ Champions the Civil Rights Act," Prologue (Summer 2004), https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act 

Writing a research paper  

• Shortcut to finding academic literature: https://consensus.app/
• Do not believe something just because you see it online.  Especially with data, trace back to the original source.  An example.
• The same goes with quotations and paraphrases.  Stuff presidents never said.
• One-stop shopping for presidential material here: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/
• Current transcripts:  https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/search/
• Movies: IMDB AND script links
• Writing tips

Today, the formal powers and institutional advantages.  On Wed, legsislative bargaining and case studies.

One big advantage:  one voice v.535 voices.

Information asymmetry (Edwards 360-361).

In January 2020, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah heavily criticized a Trump administration briefing on the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

Congressional support agencies have not kept up

Article II duties.

Article I powers: Bills and agenda-setting

Vetoes.  

Statements of Administration Policy (Trump examples)

1— Strongly Support Passage
2— Support Passage
3— Do not Object to Passage
4— No Position on Passage
5— Oppose
6— Strongly Oppose
7— Secretary’s Veto Threat (single and multiple agency)
8— Senior Advisor’s Veto Threat
9— Presidential Veto Threat (285-286) and other warnings.

Item Veto (287): Supreme Court struck it down in Clinton v. City of New York.

Signing statements (Edward 397-98)

• A de facto item veto?
• As a candidate, Obama opposed signing statements  -- but as president, he issued them
• Trump First Term examples

Parties and Congress (Edwards 362-75)

From WP 11/2/24

1. Republicans who lost primaries after opposing Trump U.S. House

Member	State	Year	Reason / Context
Liz Cheney	Wyoming	2022	Lost GOP primary after voting to impeach Trump and serving as vice-chair of the Jan. 6 committee.
Jaime Herrera Beutler	Washington	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; eliminated in the 2022 “jungle” primary amid pro-Trump challenges.
Tom Rice	South Carolina	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; defeated by Trump-backed challenger Russell Fry.
Peter Meijer	Michigan	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; defeated in GOP primary by Trump-backed John Gibbs.
Mark Sanford	South Carolina	2018	Prominent Trump critic; lost primary to Trump-endorsed challenger Katie Arrington.
Bob Good	Virginia	2024	Initially backed Ron DeSantis instead of Trump in the presidential primary and lost to Trump-endorsed challenger John McGuire.

2. Republicans who retired rather than run again amid conflict with Trump

U.S. House

Member	State	Year	Notes
Adam Kinzinger	Illinois	2022	One of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 committee; chose not to seek reelection.
Anthony Gonzalez	Ohio	2022	Voted to impeach Trump; announced retirement citing political toxicity and threats.
Fred Upton	Michigan	2022	Impeachment vote; retired after intense pro-Trump backlash.
John Katko	New York	2022	Impeachment vote; retired amid expected Trump-aligned primary challenge.
Paul Ryan	Wisconsin	2018	As Speaker, clashed with Trump on several issues and chose to retire rather than seek reelection.

U.S. Senate

Member	State	Year	Notes
Jeff Flake	Arizona	2018	Frequent Trump critic; announced retirement saying the party was abandoning conservative principles.
Bob Corker	Tennessee	2018	Openly clashed with Trump and retired rather than run again.
Ben Sasse	Nebraska	2022	Long-time Trump critic; left the Senate to become president of the University of Florida.
Thom Tillis	North Carolina	2026	Announced retirement after conflict with Trump and backlash from MAGA activists.

The Broader Executive Branch: Solving Old Problems or Creating New Ones?

Assignment update.

For your weekly writeup: how does ch. 10 shed light on the Iran War and the DHS shutdown?

For Monday, Edwards, ch. 11.

Followup from last time: bureaucratic responsiveness (Edwards 332-334)

• How do the interests and viewpoints of career bureaucrats differ from those of political appointees?
• How can they resist or thwart administration policies?  (Here is a big one.)

So how to fix problems with coordination, complexity, and control?

Micromanagement and Jimmy Carter. Aide James Fallows;

Carter came into office determined to set a rational plan for his time, but soon showed in practice that he was still the detail-man used to running his own warehouse, the perfectionist accustomed to thinking that to do a job right you must do it yourself. He would leave for a weekend at Camp David laden with thick briefing books, would pore over budget tables to check the arithmetic, and, during his first six months in office, would personally review all requests to use the White House tennis court.

Finding loyalists

• Cabinet
• Vetting job candidates and political screening (video)
• The problem is that political vetting weeds out qualified candidates

Going after leakers, start at 5:40

Going after a "cabal"

Reorganization

• National Security Act of 1947 (more later) 
• Homeland Security Act of 2002

DOGE failed to cut spending

Lawsuits may end up making DOGE a net loss.

Contracting out (Edwards 525-526)

Research Assignment

Pick one:

Option 1

If you are playing an administration figure or witness in the Congress simulation, you may write your paper about the individual you are portraying.  Explain what you did in the simulation, and why you did it.  Cite your own notes or prep memo. Quote from what you said in the simulation, and the questions you received from simulation senators.

Most of the paper should focus on the person in real life. What issues matter most to that person?  What political advantages and constraints does this person have in achieving her or his goals? How does this person interact with Congress, and with what effect?

Option 2

Choose one currently serving Trump-appointed Supreme Court justice, executive official, or Republican congressional leader. Analyze the relationship between this individual and President Trump. Specify where it has aligned and where it has diverged. Identify specific instances (decisions, votes, public statements, or policy actions during the second Trump administration) in which your chosen figure has clearly pleased President Trump. and disappointed, resisted, or diverged from Trump. What formal and informal tools does Trump have to shape this person’s behavior?  Anchor your analysis in primary sources such as speeches, interviews, social media posts, Congressional Record entries, hearing transcripts and judicial opinions.

Option 3

Choose your favorite movie (not TV series) in which a U.S. president (real or fictional) is a central character. It can be a serious historical drama about an actual president (e.g., Lincoln (2012) or Frost/Nixon) or a fictional film with a president as protagonist (The American President, or the 2025 Netflix film A House of Dynamite). The only rules: the president must drive the story, and it must be about the person's actions as president, not a pre-presidential career (e.g., The Apprentice, Young Mr. Lincoln).

Dissect how the film got the presidency right, where it went Hollywood-wild, and what it teaches -- or misleads -- us about executive power, leadership, and politics. This is your chance to blend pop culture with serious political science. Rewatch the movie like a scholar, apply course concepts, and back everything up with evidence.

In your essay, explain what drew you to this film and how you initially reacted to it.  Does it seem different to you now that you are studying the presidency?   Give very specific examples of what it got significantly right and wrong, with citations. Overall, does it enlighten or misinform?

Option 4

Propose and defend a specific constitutional amendment that alters presidential power. Your task is not just to suggest a reform, but to design it precisely, justify it historically, and evaluate its real-world consequences. Write your proposed constitutional amendment in formal amendment-style language (and you may use an existing proposal, with citation). It must modify one or more presidential powers and include implementation details. Identify the specific problem your amendment is to solve, anchoring your argument in at least two presidential actions since 2000. Explain how your amendment fits within (or departs from) constitutional principles, citing sources such as The Federalist and key Supreme Court cases. Using data from polls and legislative vote studies, assess whether your proposal could pass Congress and achieve ratification.  And throughout, use primary and scholarly sources.

Option 5

Devise your own topic, subject to my approval and revision.

The specifications:

• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than six pages long. I will not read past the sixth page.
• Please submit all papers in this course as Word documents, not Google docs or pdfs.
• Read Strunk & White and my stylesheet (with links to model papers). Watch my writing lecture.
• Cite your sources. Please use endnotes in the format of the Chicago Manual of Style. Endnotes do not count against the page limit. Please do not use footnotes, which take up too much page space.
• Misrepresenting AI-generated content as your own work is plagiarism and will result in severe consequences
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you.
• Return essays to the Canvas dropbox for this class by 11:59 PM, Friday, April 17. (If you have trouble with Canvas, simply email it to me as an attached file.) I reserve the right to dock papers one gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that.

The Broader Executive Branch

For Wednesday, finish ch. 10.

Next assignment

Problems of coordination, complexity, and control

What is implementation?

Presidents talk about solving domestic problems but states & localities do most of the domestic policy implementation (Edwards 314-315).  Discuss examples.

COVID

Types of Federal Bureaucracies

Cabinet Departments	15 major executive departments responsible for broad policy areas, headed by a Secretary in the President's Cabinet.	Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, Education.
Independent Executive Agencies	Agencies outside the Cabinet departments, usually focusing on specific missions, reporting directly to the President.	NASA, CIA, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Independent Regulatory Commissions	Agencies that regulate specific industries or parts of the economy, officially free from political influence.	Federal Reserve System, FCC, Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Government Corporations	Agencies that perform services that the private sector could do, but are government-run for public benefit.	Amtrak, U.S. Postal Service, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Redundancy, Duplication, and Overlap

GAO: "Services funded under the Older Americans Act of 1965 (OAA), as amended, overlap with 36 other federal programs but do not duplicate the social services and assistance they provide to older adults, according to GAO’s analysis. GAO found that these programs differ in the population served, goals and services provided, or both. The overlapping programs can complement OAA-funded services, for example by providing more specialized services relevant to an agency’s expertise. The areas of need served by these programs include health, nutrition, transportation, and employment. Nine departments and agencies administer the 36 non-OAA programs, which indicates there is fragmentation of services for older adults."

Federal law enforcement 

Administrative Procedure Act:  rules for rulemaking

• Obama and DAPA
• Trump and VOA

Federal civilian employees

Category	Approx. Number	Share of Workforce	Notes
Career Civil Service	~2,050,000	~99%	Core bureaucracy
SES (career + political)	~8,800	<0.5%	Senior managers
Political Appointees	~4,000	~0.2%	Leadership layer
Schedule F (proposed)	~50,000	~2–3% (if enacted)	Would come from civil service

Iron triangles, issue networks, and the "Deep State"

Decisions

 For a week from Monday, Edwards, ch. 10.

Questions on the paper?

The cabinet

• Different from cabinets in parliamentary systems?
• Criteria for selection? (More after break)

FLOTUS

• HRC
• Michelle Obama
• Melania
• Dr. Jill Biden

VEEP:  "All vice presidents eat enormous bowls of feces. That's the job." -- Jonah Goldberg (P `25).  Meaning??

• Nixon and Agnew as attack dogs
• Mondale and Biden as liaisons to official Washington
• Cheney as prime minister (start at 25:00).

DECISIONS

Stereotypical Rational Decision

What is the problem in the first place?

Cognitive and epistemological issues

Before the Iraq War, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said:

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.

Intelligence on intentions and capabilities. Beware of

• Errors and incomplete information
• Disinformation
• Groupthink (299-300)
• Faulty assumptions: Pearl Harbor
• "SUCCESS has always been the greatest liar." -- Nietzche
• Faulty analogies (Munich) and figures of speech (domino theory)
• Viewing adversaries as mirror images (LBJ and a TVA on the Mekong) or totally inhuman.

Decisions are seldom purely rational

Organizational Processes and SOPs:  

• Getting with the team (Iraq intelligence)
• Rationalizing what the government has already done.
• In the case of the run-up to war, allies and assets take huge risks that will blow up on them if the war does not happen.

Personal politics

• Knowledge and experience of decision-makers.  Analyze background and history
• Who has influence with whom?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/politics/trump-war-iran-israel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QVA.aA0l.b_nKBPEcPsW_&smid=nytcore-ios-share

• What was Netanyahu's stake?
• Why did he have influence with DJT?
• Why did his government have influence with the US intel community?
• How did complexity and uncertainty complicate scenario planning?
• What was the "intelligence coup" that triggered the attack?
• What did the administration assume about the Iranian response? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/us/politics/how-trump-miscalculated-iran-response.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SVA.yJMv.Gwegd7GPVPBa

Staff

Sit Room sequence from House of Dynamite

Questions on the assignment.

On Wednesday, VP, FLOTUS, the Cabinet, and decisionmaking.  Read ch. 9.

If you want to play a part in the simulation, see here.

I have a lunch meeting, so we adjourn at 12:10.

The West Wing

The  EOB

Why do people want to work in the White House?

West Wing documentary

How do you get a White House staff job?

 Brandi Hoffine on her path to the White House staff (start at 7:30).

Why did 19th century presidents have practically no staff?  Lincoln had two staffers.

Brownlow Committee (p. 234).  Why did FDR need a lot more staff?

The Executive Office of the President Edwards 234-35

Chief of Staff  (237-239)

Dates back to Ike, developed by Haldeman under Nixon.

Dick Cheney picks up the story:

The roles of the chief of staff -- a lot depends on the individual president:

• Gatekeeper:  meaning?
• Insulator and scapegoat
• Advisor/guardrail

Comms (review from last week)

• Press Secretary
• Office of Communications
• Office of Public Liaison (3-cushion billiards)
• Clip from West Wing starting at 16:00

OMB

• Preparation of budget
• Domestic policy
• Regulatory review

NSC

• Role of Nat Sec Adviser varies with the president
• The Sit room