President of the United States of America

Template:TOC-right The President of the United States of America is the head of state and the head of the Executive branch of the United States of America. The office of the President is defined in Article II of the Constitution.

The Constitution provides that the President must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, at least 35 years of age, elected by Electors from the several states, that the term of office is 4 years, currently beginning on January 20. As a result of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, no person may be elected President more than twice, nor serve more than ten years as president.

Forty-three men have served as President of the United States since the ratification of the Constitution, beginning with George Washington in 1789. However, the current President, Barack Obama, is counted as the 44th, because Grover Cleveland is counted as both the 22nd and the 24th President.

Presidential Selection

As set out in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution, a president is selected every four years by an Electoral College consisting of a number of electors corresponding to the total congressional representation for each state. In the event that no individual garners at least a majority of the Electoral College vote, presidential selection falls to the House of Representatives. The constitutional Electoral College system remains largely in place; however, it has undergone a number of changes since it was first established.

The first formal change was made in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th Amendment to the Constitution subsequent to the emergence of political parties in the United States. Before this amendment was passed, each elector voted for two individuals without any specification as to whether they were to be president or vice president; the highest electoral vote-getter was then named president while the second-highest became vice president. The 12th Amendment changed this procedure so that electors cast a single vote on each of two separate ballots, one for president and one for vice president.

The Constitution's 23rd Amendment, which was ratified in 1960, makes the somewhat more modest change of providing the District of Columbia, which lacks congressional respresentation, with three Electoral College votes.

There have been some less formal changes, as well. For example, the Constitution leaves it up to each state to determine how its electors are to be selected and allocated. At first, the electors in most states were appointed by their respective state legislatures. As time went on, however, the states began tying their electoral votes to the popular vote, typically through a "winner-take-all" system in which a state's popular vote winner receives all of that state's electoral votes. Nevertheless, the states still retain the constitutional power to choose their electors through the alternative method of their choosing.

In addition, the process through which presidential candidates are selected - which is not addressed at all in the Constitution - has undergone considerable change. Starting with the emergence of political parties during the 1790s, the congressional members of each party would meet in their respective caucuses to choose their nominees. This "King Caucus" system fell by the wayside during the 1824 election, however, and was subsequently replaced by national nominating conventions. Efforts to make candidate selection more directly reflective of the will of the people began during the Progressive Era, when reformers pushed for the adoption of direct primaries. Direct primaries did not catch on as well as reformers would have liked, however, as state parties were disinclined to sponsor primaries and candidates were disinclined to run in them. No more than 17 states held primaries in any single election year between 1920 and 1968 and several individuals, including Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968, won their parties' nomination without running in a single primary election.

Powers of the President

Several presidential powers are laid out in Article II, section 2 of the Constitution. Over time, additional powers have accumulated, either by explicit congressional grant, tradition, or by the President winning political battles with the other branches.

Constitutional powers

As established in Article II of the Constitution, the president's consitutional powers include serving as commander in chief of the armed forces, the power to pardon offenses, the power to negotiate treaties, and the power to appoint a variety of federal government officials including ambassadors and Supreme Court justices. In addition, Article I, section 7 of the Constitution explicates the president's power to sign or veto legislation passed by Congress.

None of the president's constitutional powers is absolute. While he is commander in chief of the armed forces, the Constitution assigns other war powers, including the power to declare war and the power to raise and maintain the armed forces, to Congress. A president may not grant pardons in cases of impeachment. And finally, the Senate's "advice and consent" is required for a president to utilize his treaty and appointment powers.

Extra-constitutional powers

Unilateral policymaking

While the Constitution stipulates a bilateral policymaking process in which the president and Congress cooperate to produce legislation, several tools that enable presidents to make policy unilaterally have developed over the course of presidential history. The oldest such tool is the executive order, which was first used by George Washington in 1789.

History of the Presidency

See also: List of U.S. Presidents

The Articles of Confederation established a very limited presidency consisting of a single member of Congress whose sole function was to preside over that body for a one-year term.

The defects of the system led to the proposal for a single chief executive, who would serve a limited term. The limited term and allowing re-election, along with the method of election and limitations on the powers of the President were argued (in The Federalist) to give the Presidency the advantages of a monarchical executive without the disadvantages of a hereditary monarch.

It is reported that the authors of the Constitution had intended that George Washington would serve as the nation's first President, and that the office was designed with him in mind, but also that the Framers were aware that in the future the office would be occupied by much lesser men, and the office was designed to limit the damage a poor president could do. George Washington was, in fact, elected as the first President, and served two terms of office. On leaving office after his second term, he said that no man should serve more than twice, and until the re-election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, no man served more than two terms. After the death of Roosevelt, the 22nd Amendment was passed, limiting the number of terms a President could serve.

Official Residence

The President's official residence is the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C..

Controversies

Aside from scandals over corruption, some of the primary controversies over the office of President have been those over the war powers of the President versus the Congress; the respective roles of the President and the Senate in the appointment of executive and judicial officers; and the authority of the President to "impound" (or refuse to spend) money appropriated for specific purposes by the Congress; as well as the method of electing the President.