Obama's 'Czars' for Domestic Policy and the Law of the White House Staff
Obama's 'Czars' for Domestic Policy and the Law of the White House Staff

Author: Aaron J. Saiger

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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President Obama has appointed a substantial number of high-profile, area-specific, domestic policy advisors to senior positions in the White House Office. The proliferation of these high-profile “czars,” as they have come to be known, represent a particular approach to the goal, shared by all modern presidents, of magnifying presidential influence over agency action in domestic policy. Czars provide Obama with an attractive synthesis of the technocratic advantages traditionally associated with the agency form and the political responsiveness ordinarily attributed to the White House staff. That synthesis, I argue, presents no constitutional problems; but it does increase the opacity of presidential influence over agencies to political accountability and legal controls. I therefore consider two categories of potential administrative-law response. One is to limit the ability of the president's staff to interact with agencies: such contact could be forbidden, restricted, or saddled with transparency requirements. The other, better alternative is to relax some administrative constraints on agencies, and in particular to allow a president's political preferences more easily to serve as a legitimate justification for agency decisions. Increased doctrinal room for a president to realize his political program by using the agency form will decrease his incentives to find politically and legally opaque ways to work such influence from the White House.

Obama on the Home Front
Obama on the Home Front

Author: John D. Graham

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2016-08-08

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 0253021154

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“The best comprehensive review of the Obama administration’s policies available,” by the author of Bush on the Home Front (Daniel P. Franklin, author of Pitiful Giants: Presidents in their Final Term). Barack Obama came into office as the economy was careening into the worst downturn since the Great Depression. On the political front, he would be challenged by the same intense congressional polarization faced by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, now exacerbated by the rise of the Tea Party movement. In this comprehensive assessment of domestic policymaking, John D. Graham considers what we may learn from the Obama presidency about how presidents can best implement their agendas when Congress is evenly divided. What did Obama pledge to do in domestic policy and what did he actually accomplish? Why did some initiatives succeed and others fail? Did Obama’s policies contribute to the losses experienced by the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2014? In carefully documented case studies of economic policy, health care reform, energy and environmental policy, and immigration reform, Graham asks whether Obama was effective at accomplishing his agenda. Counterfactuals are analyzed to suggest ways that Obama might have been even more effective than he was and at less political cost to his party. As with the author’s acclaimed Bush on the Home Front, this book elaborates and applies a theory of presidential effectiveness in a polarized political environment.

Czars in the White House
Czars in the White House

Author: Justin S. Vaughn

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2015-06-02

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0472119583

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When Barack Obama entered the White House, he faced numerous urgent issues. Despite the citizens' demand for strong presidential leadership, President Obama, following a long-standing precedent for the development and implementation of major policies, appointed administrators--so-called policy czars--charged with directing the response to the nation's most pressing crises. Combining public administration and political science approaches to the study of the American presidency and institutional politics, Justin S. Vaughn and José D. Villalobos argue that the creation of policy czars is a strategy for combating partisan polarization and navigating the federal government's complexity. They present a series of in-depth analyses of the appointment, role, and power of various czars: the energy czar in the mid-1970s, the drug czar in the late 1980s, the AIDS czar in the 1990s, George W. Bush's trio of national security czars after 9/11, and Obama's controversial czars for key domestic issues. Laying aside inflammatory political rhetoric, Vaughn and Villalobos offer a sober, empirical analysis of what precisely constitutes a czar, why Obama and his predecessors used czars, and what role they have played in the modern presidency.

Harvard Law Review: Volume 125, Number 5 - March 2012
Harvard Law Review: Volume 125, Number 5 - March 2012

Author: Harvard Law Review

Publisher: Quid Pro Books

Published: 2012-03-10

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1610279417

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The Harvard Law Review is offered in a quality ebook edition, featuring active Contents, linked footnotes and cross-references, linked URLs, legible tables, and proper formatting. This current issue of the Review is March 2012, the fifth issue of academic year 2011-2012 (Volume 125). Featured articles in this issue are from such recognized scholars as Jody Freeman and Jim Rossi, on the coordination of administrative agencies when they share regulatory space, and James Whitman, reviewing Bernard Harcourt's new book on the illusion of free markets as to prisons. Student contributions explore the law relating to antitrust law and business deception; the failed Google Books settlement; mergers and acquisitions; materiality in securities law; administrative law; patentable subject matter; and paid sick leave. Finally, the issue includes two Book Notes.

Independent Agencies in the United States
Independent Agencies in the United States

Author: Marshall J. Breger

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0199812128

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It is essential for anyone involved in law, politics, and government, as well as students of the governmental process, to comprehend the workings of the federal independent regulatory agencies of the United States. Occasionally referred to as the "headless fourth branch of government," these agencies do not fit neatly within any of the three constitutional branches. Their members are appointed for terms that typically exceed those of the President, and they cannot be removed from office in the absence of some sort of malfeasance or misconduct. They wield enormous power over the private sector, and they have foreign analogues. In Independent Agencies in the United States, Marshall Breger and Gary Edles provide a full-length study of the structure and workings of federal independent regulatory agencies in the US. This book focuses on traditional multi-member agencies that have a significant impact on the American economy, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the National Labor Relations Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. This work recognizes that the changing kaleidoscope of modern life has led Congress to create idiosyncratic administrative structures consisting of independent agencies squarely within the Executive Branch, including government corporations and government-sponsored enterprises, to establish a new construct of independence to meet the changing needs of the administrative state. In the process, Breger and Edles analyze the general conflict between political accountability and agency independence. This book also compares US with EU and certain UK independent agencies to offer a unique comparative perspective. Included is a first-of-its-kind appendix describing the powers and procedures of the more than 35 independent US federal agencies, with each supplemented by a selective bibliography of pertinent materials.

Calling the Shots
Calling the Shots

Author: Daniel P. Gitterman

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 0815729030

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" Modern presidents are CEOs with broad powers over the federal government. The United States Constitution lays out three hypothetically equal branches of government—the executive, the legislative, and the judicial—but over the years, the president, as head of the executive branch, has emerged as the usually dominant political and administrative force at the federal level. In fact, Daniel Gitterman tells us, the president is, effectively, the CEO of an enormous federal bureaucracy. Using the unique legal authority delegated by thousands of laws, the ability to issue executive orders, and the capacity to shape how federal agencies write and enforce rules, the president calls the shots as to how the government is run on a daily basis. Modern presidents have, for example, used the power of the purchaser to require federal contractors to pay a minimum wage and to prohibit contracting with companies and contractors that knowingly employ unauthorized alien workers. Presidents and their staffs use specific tools, including executive orders and memoranda to agency heads, as instruments of control and influence over the government and the private sector. For more than a century, they have used these tools without violating the separation of powers. Calling the Shots demonstrates how each of these executive powers is a powerful weapon of coercion and redistribution in the president's political and policymaking arsenal. "

Lobbying the New President
Lobbying the New President

Author: Heath Brown

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1136494545

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Presidential transitions offer the chance for new ideas, policies, and people to inhabit the White House. Transitions have triggered policy change for decades and eager interest groups have sought ways to capitalize on this often chaotic phase of US politics. President-Elect Barack Obama declared that lobbyists would be forbidden from serving his transition and issued stiff regulations and rules to limit their access to the planning for his White House. Yet even though Obama’s efforts mirror previous Presidents anti-lobbyist efforts, all Presidential transitions provide certain channels of influence, and Obama himself chose the head of a powerful and politically oriented think tank, the Center for American Progress, to run his transition. New Presidents need the information, ideas, and political capital that groups possess. Thus a curious paradox. Using an innovative mixed methodology integrating a historical analysis of original documents, original interviews with over 40 interest group leaders and transition leaders, a survey of 300 interest groups and content analysis of 300 interest group letters, Lobbying the New President uncovers the politics of interest group influence during Presidential transitions. In doing so, Heath Brown asks: Was the role played by Heritage in 1980 and CAP in 2008 indicative of a pattern of influence during the transition phase? Or have Presidents effectively shielded themselves from outside influence at the earliest point of their time in office? What can we learn about the larger study of interest groups and the Presidency from a focus on the transition phase? This book is a valuable resource that goes beyond the field of presidency studies which American politics scholars as well as public policy specialists should not go without.

To Serve the President
To Serve the President

Author: Bradley H. Patterson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009-12-23

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0815701799

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Nobody knows more about the duties, the difficulties, and the strategies of staffing and working in the White House than Brad Patterson. In To Serve the President, Patterson combines insider access, decades of Washington experience, and an inimitable style to open a window onto closely guarded Oval Office turf. The fascinating and entertaining result is the most complete look ever at the White House and the people that make it work. Patterson describes what he considers to be the whole White House staff, a larger and more inclusive picture than the one painted by most analysts. In addition to nearly one hundred policy offices, he draws the curtain back from less visible components such as the Executive Residence staff, Air Force One and Marine One, the First Lady's staff, Camp David, and many others—135 separate offices in all, pulling together under often stressful and intense conditions. This authoritative and readable account lays out the organizational structure of the full White House and fills it out the outline with details both large and small. Who are these people? What exactly do they do? And what role do they play in running the nation? Another exciting feature of To Serve the President is Patterson's revelation of the total size and total cost of the contemporary White House—information that simply is not available anywhere else. This is not a kiss-and-tell tale or an incendiary exposé. Brad Patterson is an accomplished public administrator with an intimate knowledge of how the White House really works, and he brings to this book a refreshingly positive view of government and public service not currently in vogue. The U.S. government is not a monolith, or a machine, or a shadowy cabal; above all, it is people, human beings doing the best they can, under challenging conditions, to produce a better life for their fellow citizens. While there are bad apples in every bunch, the vast majority

Law of Administrative Organization of the EU
Law of Administrative Organization of the EU

Author: Matthias Ruffert

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2020-12-25

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1800373619

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With the transfer of ever more tasks and competences to the European level the EU’s administration has become increasingly complex, with ‘agencification’ as the most visible sign of this differentiation. This book offers a much-needed analytical overview of the field, with the aim of improving our understanding of administration at the European level, and indeed of improving the administration itself.