Tag Archives: Obama

An Imperial Presidency? Obama, Signing Statements and the Unwritten Constitution

Last Friday Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 2055, the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012,” which is an omnibus year-end spending bill. While signing the bill into law, however, he issued a statement that declared several provisions within the bill as either unconstitutional or as infringing on his executive powers. These include provisions limiting his flexibility in dealing with enemy combatants now held at Guantanamo Bay prison, and others that forced him to consult with congressional committees before authorizing military exercises costing above a specified dollar amount or that required congressional approval before allowing U.S. forces to operate under U.N. command. In the signing statement posted on the White House website, Obama notes, “My Administration has repeatedly communicated my objections to these provisions, including my view that they could, under certain circumstances, violate constitutional separation of powers principles. In approving this bill, I reiterate the objections my Administration has raised regarding these provisions, my intent to interpret and apply them in a manner that avoids constitutional conflicts, and the promise that my Administration will continue to work towards their repeal.”

As the name suggests, a signing statement is simply a declaration by the president explaining how he interprets the legislation that he has signed into law. Sometimes those statements merely clarify language, but often they declare a president’s intent to, in effect, disregard those portions of the law that he deems unconstitutional. Although presidents dating back to Monroe have made use of signing statements, they became controversial during the Bush presidency, in part because of a highly-publicized Boston Globe article by Charlie Savage in 2006 that claimed “President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office.” More accurately, as the Globe later acknowledged, Bush had in fact challenged about 750 provisions contained in about 125 bills during his first six years in office, although this correction was often overlooked by Bush’s critics. The distinction is not inconsequential; for example, using Savage’s original method of counting, Obama would have challenged 20 “laws” alone in this one signing statement. So we need to be careful how we define a “law.”

Savage, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his work on this topic, linked Bush’s seemingly extraordinary use of signing statements (in fact, Bush issued far fewer than did his predecessor Bill Clinton) to Bush’s broader claim of enhanced executive power rooted in the theory of the “unitary executive”. That controversy was not lost on candidate Obama who, in running for the Presidency, made it clear he would not follow Bush’s precedent. Signing statements, Obama proclaimed in 2008, are “not part of his power, but this is part of the whole theory of George Bush that he can make laws as he goes along. I disagree with that. I taught the Constitution for 10 years. I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We’re not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end-run around Congress.”

The reality, however, is that President Obama has been quite willing to utilize signing statements, albeit at a slightly reduced rate compared to recent presidents. By one count he has issued almost 20 such statements to date. For comparison purposes, Bill Clinton issued some 92 signing statements in his first three years in office – almost as many as Bush did in six years – and close to 400 during his two terms. However, as this Congressional Research Service report suggests, a focus on the number of signing statements alone can be misleading. Indeed, constitutional scholars on both the Left and the Right are in basic agreement that signing statements themselves are not the issue – it is the president’s intent when issuing the statement that is of concern. In particular, beginning with the Reagan administration there has been a marked increase in the number of signing statements issued by presidents that raise constitutional objections to laws. According to the CRS report issued in 2007, “President Reagan issued 250 signing statements, 86 of which (34%) contained provisions objecting to one or more of the statutory provisions signed into law. President George H. W. Bush continued this practice, issuing 228 signing statements, 107 of which (47%) raised objections. President Clinton’s conception of presidential power proved to be largely consonant with that of the preceding two administrations. In turn, President Clinton made aggressive use of the signing statement, issuing 381 statements, 70 of which (18%) raised constitutional or legal objections. President George W. Bush has continued this practice, issuing 152 signing statements, 118 of which (78%) contain some type of challenge or objection.” To date, based on a quick read of his statements, I estimate loosely that about half of Obama’s signing statements contain constitutional objections but, until I do a more systematic analysis, this should be viewed as a very rough estimate.

It appears, then, that Obama has had a significant change of heart when it comes to signing statements during the transition from candidate to President and instead has adopted the view of every president going back to Reagan that their use is not only acceptable but necessary. But why? The answer, I think, is that Obama – as he did with other precedents centered on the War on Terror – has realized that signing statements serve a useful purpose in the modern lawmaking process. Rather than a grab for power, signing statements instead illustrate what Don K. Price called the unwritten constitution: adaptations in how the President and Congress interact that, by filling in interstices in the written Constitution, helped adapt that document to the exigencies of governing in the modern age. In this case, the signing statements serves as a means through which presidents can influence the legislative process.

However, doesn’t the Constitution’s veto provision specify what a president should do if he finds a bill constitutionally objectionable? The problem from a president’s perspective with the veto is that it is often an all-or-nothing alternative. Because presidents cannot selectively excise those portions of a bill they find objectionable, a veto means rejecting the entire piece of legislation, even though it may contain many provisions the president supports. Congress, of course, realizes this, and in the modern era has become adept at larding bills with extraneous provisions to which they know the President may object. This is particularly the case with appropriations bill, which now frequently contain non-budgetary policy-relevant provisions that presidents – as Obama did with the 2012 omnibus appropriation bill – cannot accept on constitutional grounds. But if they include enough legislative sweeteners, or attach the provisions to bills that must pass every year, they calculate the president will be forced to accept the entire dose of legislative medicine. Faced with this strategy, presidents have adapted by signing these bills into law while publicly stating which provisions they accept, and which they find objectionable on constitutional grounds. Note that Congress can and does grumble about this, and more than once members have threatened legislative retaliation. But these bills have gone nowhere – an implicit acknowledgement, I think, that legislators view signing statements as consistent with the system of shared powers rather than a repudiation of it. They recognize why presidents’ issue these statements, and as long as the dispute in interpretation stays at the level of rhetoric, both sides are willing to look the other way.

And, of course, this is the crucial question: are these mere rhetorical disputes, or have presidents’ signing statements had a measurable impact on how legislation has been implemented? Alas, it is difficult to answer this question. For one such effort, see this GAO study which looked at the implementation of 10 provisions in laws signed by George Bush but which included a signing statement. The bottom line? The GAO found no evidence that the signing statements hindered implementation; in their words “Although we found that three provisions have not yet been implemented, we cannot conclude that agency noncompliance was the result of the President’s signing statements.”

The lack of systematic evidence that signing statements have altered the balance of power has not stopped critics from viewing their use as evidence of the rise of an imperial president. Of course, who makes these charges depends on whose ox is being gored; under Bush, the charges emanated from the Left. Today, they come from the Right. Rather than an imperial presidency, however, I think signing statements are better viewed as the latest manifestation of how the President and Congress adapt the lawmaking process within a system of shared powers. The increase in the use of signing statements for constitutional reasons really starts with Reagan, not Bush, and it does so because this is when an increasingly polarized Congress begins to make greater use of the budget process to push broader policy goals. Obama has followed in Reagan’s – and Bush’s – footsteps not because he embraces an imperial presidency. It’s because in the current governing context their use follows logically from the Constitutional-based incentives that give him a stake in the legislative process.

6:30 Addendum: I just noticed that Andy Rudalevige has a related piece up here at the Monkey Cage site.

On A Wing and a Prayer: What Tim Tebow Can Teach Obama

When it comes to leadership, what can President Obama learn from Broncos’ quarterback Tim Tebow? Apparently, quite a lot. At least that’s the claim Matthew Dowd makes in this recent National Journal article. Dowd argues that Obama has lost his leadership mojo: “Take a look at Obama’s latest interview. It does not make you feel better about where we are heading. You don’t feel like we are going to win under his leadership. He points fingers and refuses to admit his own mistakes or weaknesses. I often wonder where is the Barack Obama of the 2007 and 2008 campaign. That Obama was much more like the leader we need at this time. He offered hope, he had soaring rhetoric, he offered a change from the bitter politics in Washington, and he made us feel we could win.”

The cure for Obama’s leadership ills, Dowd argues, is to steal a page from the Tebow playbook and begin “quarterbacking our country” in “Tebow style”. And what is that style? “Tebow is the kind of leader for his football team that our country needs at this crucial moment … . [N]o matter the outcome, Tebow has shown what faith, and confidence and humility can do for a team of limited skills that was losing consistently before. This is exactly what President Franklin Roosevelt and President Reagan understood about leadership…What citizens and businesses need is a leader who can raise us all up to a level we didn’t know we had in us, give us confidence in ourselves, give us a common goal to work toward, and make us believe in and have faith in ourselves again.”

I confess that my first time through I thought this might be one of the most inane columns I have ever read. Upon second reading, however, I was convinced of it. Now, having calmed down a bit, I realize my first and second impressions were exactly right.

Look, as someone who writes what has become essentially a daily blog post, I’m sympathetic to Dowd’s likely motivations in writing this piece. He realized that Tebow is now a national story, and he was probably looking for column material that would attract the maximum google hits. So, we probably shouldn’t take this too seriously. In that vein, let’s play along with Dowd’s logic and see whether Obama has anything to learn from Tebow. To anticipate my conclusion, the short answer is: No. Here’s why.

Let’s begin with the most important point: Tebow doesn’t call his own plays! That’s right – Tebow is miked up and receives direction from the sidelines (and, perhaps, from up above as well – but that’s another story.) It’s possible, I suppose, to do the same with Obama – but who would be calling the shots? Biden? Michelle? If we follow the Tebow football metaphor, why not Bill Belichick? Of course, had Belichick been in charge since day 1 of Obama’s presidency it’s likely that unemployment would be at 4%, Democrats would still control Congress and Obama’s approval would be close 75%. And all with a cabinet composed of political retreads and unknowns.

Still I suppose it’s not too late to bring Belichick on board now. Of course, his first move would probably be to sit Obama. I can hear the press conference now:

Question: “Coach Belichick, why is the President on the inactive list for this week’s game?”

Coach Hoodie: “Coach’s decision for the good of the team. Clinton gives us a better chance to win, so I made the switch. The President’s record being what it is, I just thought it was best to make the switch now. That’s it.” Clinton, of course, would then lead the Democrats to an improbable comeback in 2012, when they reclaim Congress and she gets 8 years. Obama would become a regular on the Rachel Maddow show.

Reason two: Tebow is getting bailed out by his field goal kicker. Who’s going to hit one from beyond 50 yards with time running down for Obama? Hillary? Personally, I prefer Kathy Ireland, but that’s purely for aesthetic purposes. Hillary probably has better distance.

But I digress. My point, I hope is clear. Dowd would have us believe that Obama’ s struggles have something to do with defects in his leadership style. In Dowd’s words: “I do think this Tebow boomlet is about faith. And it’s about confidence. And leadership. And humility — a humbleness born of strength and conviction. It is about Tebow’s faith in his own teammates. It is about his faith and confidence in his own organization. It is about him acknowledging his own weaknesses and failings and mistakes and understanding that if his team looks good, then he looks good… This economy, and our country, do not need more programs out of Washington, D.C., or legislation from Congress, or tax cuts for the wealthy, or more spending on government stimulus. What citizens and businesses need is a leader who can raise us all up to a level we didn’t know we had in us, give us confidence in ourselves, give us a common goal to work toward, and make us believe in and have faith in ourselves again.

It seems this is a leadership lesson we keep having to learn over and over again through our country’s history. It is so easy to forget how successes were achieved along the way by Kennedy-style exhortations such as ‘we are going to the moon.’ It is so easy to default into failing Washington-style, us-against-them, to try and get short-term political success. But maybe a quarterback who seems as much boy as man can show us all, including the candidates for president, how to win and how to get our country back on track.”

Oh, please. Obama’s “failings” to date have nothing to do with a faulty leadership style, and everything to do with a sluggish economy that has failed to create jobs – a failure rooted in a fiscal meltdown that predated his time as the nation’s “quarterback”. And while Obama’s “quarterback play” hasn’t been faultless (see my previous post) the fact remains that he is playing the game under rules set down more than two centuries ago that limit his play calling, and facing a cohesive opposition party that controls half the playing field. It’s going to take more than a wing and a prayer to win this one. Indeed, the whole “us vs. them” football metaphor is misleading. The truth is that in the last week alone Congress has passed both a major appropriations bill and a military authorization bill, and in both cases the legislation had enough bipartisan support to overcome opposition from the extremist wings of both parties. The lesson, I think, is clear: bargaining and compromise, and not Kennedy-style exhortations, are what constitutes real leadership in this political system. Or, to use the football metaphor, Obama should skip the fourth-quarter dramatics and inspirational speeches and instead pursue a strategy of “three yards and a cloud of fuss.” It is amazing how inspirational success – even minor success – can be.

As for Tebow Time – today, he confronts the Devil himself. Let’s see how that turns out.

Ranking the Presidents: Will Obama Make It To Mt. Rushmore?

Where does Obama rank among the presidents? Is he destined for Mt. Rushmore (move over, TR)? Or will he be placed with Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Pierce, Harding and George W. Bush at the bottom of the list? Or somewhere in between? Siena College recently came out with their fifth ranking of the presidents but their first to include Obama. The rankings are based on evaluations by 238 “presidential scholars”, who rated each president in 20 categories, ranging from executive ability to handling of various policies to “luck”.

According to these experts, Obama now stands as the 15^th greatest president, primarily on the basis of his imagination (6^th best), communications skills (7^th) and intelligence (8^th). This is none too shabby, as progressives on several websites (see here, for example) were quick to point out. (Much of their glee, I suspect, is because Obama is rated much higher than his predecessor, George W. Bush!) What prevented Obama from ranking even higher, apparently, were concerns about his “background”, which evidently refers to education, experience and family history.

What are we to make of these rankings? I have no qualms with attempts take the measure of a president – it is a quintessentially American endeavor, right up there with choosing the all time baseball team. Indeed, Richard Neustadt begins his classic work on the American Presidency by writing, “In the United States we like to ‘rate’ a President. We measure him as ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ and call what we are measuring his ‘leadership’.”

Nor do I necessarily think it premature to rate Obama; as Neustadt notes, “We do not wait until a man is dead; we rate him from the moment he takes office. We are quite right to do so.” Every four years that ranking takes on particular importance.

Of course, it is quite possible that Obama’s current ranking might change considerably in the next two-to-six years. Think back to Lincoln two years into his presidency. The South was winning the war in part because Lincoln’s generals were incompetent, his own party was split over his leadership, his assertion of strong wartime powers probably violated the Constitution and his public support was at low ebb. It is likely he would have ranked at this time near the bottom of the list of presidents, behind his predecessor Buchanan. Or, to take a more recent example, recall Bill Clinton’s presidency two years in, when he felt the need to assert that his role was “still relevant” after failing to pass health care and watching the Republicans come to power in the 1994 midterm elections.

Note that we need not engage only in hypotheticals when discussing how presidential rankings can change. Siena actually rated George W. Bush one year into his presidency – the same Bush who is now often called one of the worst presidents in history, and who stands 39^th (of 44 presidents) in the current Siena poll. Where did he rank in 2002? At number 23, placing him squarely in the average rankings. How times – and rankings – have changed!

So while it may be premature to rate Obama, I am not against trying to do so as long as we remember these rankings are provisional. Nonetheless, I do have a problem with the Siena rankings, and with most of the parallel efforts, dating back to the initial ratings of presidents sponsored by Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. in 1948. It’s the failure to rigorously conceptualize the criteria on which these evaluations are based. That failure makes it difficult for me to judge whether presidents are rated based on their actual influence over events, or on the events themselves, or on some other criteria.

To see what I mean, consider some of the 20 categories included in the Siena rankings. For example, Franklin Roosevelt ranks first among all presidents in his “handling of the economy”. On what is this based? The reality is that well into his second term, Roosevelt’s policies had failed to end the Great Depression – in fact, in 1937, the nation entered a mini-recession that wiped out a portion of the economic gains made during FDR’s first term. In the end, it was the massive spending of a wartime economy that finally ended the Depression. Now, one can argue that FDR’s New Deal program helped lessen the severity of the Depression, and that some of his specific actions, such as declaring a banking holiday, saved entire industries from collapse. But I can’t help thinking that his rating is based more on the severity of the economic crisis he inherited than in his actions in ending it. Indeed, is it even fair to evaluate presidents on the basis of their “handling of the economy”, considering just how little influence over economic processes presidents exercise?

Or, consider the ability to “avoid crucial mistakes.” Lincoln was rated 2^nd best in this category, just behind Washington. Some might think, however, that Lincoln’s decision to resupply Ft. Sumter, which happened to trigger the Civil War, might fall in the category of “crucial mistake”. Certainly Lincoln did not foresee the consequences of this initial act.

A second problem with the Siena rankings is the failure to differentiate the significance of different categories. So, a president’s “luck” is apparently weighted equally with their “executive ability” or “communication ability” or “ability to handle the economy”. And to what does luck refer, anyhow? Lincoln – who was killed in office – was rated the 13^th luckiest president. Really? Never mind the assassination – he took office only to see 13 states decide to secede. I hate to see the fate of an “unlucky” president! Clinton is rated the 10^th luckiest – is that because he survived impeachment? What about getting impeached in the first place? How lucky was that? One might argue that it was supremely unlucky for him that Monica Lewinsky held on to the stained dress!

And what about “integrity” – George W. Bush is rated only 39^th in this category. Why the low ranking? It might be because people object to his stretching (breaking?) the constitutional limits of his authority. But another president who pushed/broke his constitutional limits, Abraham Lincoln, is rated first in integrity. Are people judging integrity on the degree to which they agree with the president’s policy objectives?

Bush is also only rated 36^th in “background”. Again, I have no clue why he is rated so low – he attended Yale, and Harvard Business School, served as Governor of one of the largest states in the Union, and his father was the President of the United States. Perhaps he would have been better prepared graduating from Eureka College and working in the movies? (In Reagan’s defense, he served two terms as California governor. And Eureka College may be on par with Yale.)

There is also the problem of evaluating presidents who served in significantly different eras. For example, how does one compare Lincoln’s “communication” ability (he ranks second) with FDR’s (he is rated first), given the differences in technology that governed their respective communication strategies? For that matter, given the difference in the scope of their responsibilities, is it fair to compare a 19^th century president with someone who serves in the 21^st?

Now, it may be that the 238 presidential scholars were able to come to some agreement on what these categories mean, and on their relative importance. One way to measure this agreement is to see the standard deviations in their rankings. That is, how closely do the ratings cluster around the mean in each category? A small standard deviation would suggest that there was basic agreement among the evaluators. But Siena doesn’t provide this statistic, so we have no way of seeing how much agreement there was within and across categories.

In another post I’ll present my own criteria for evaluating presidents, and make some effort to explain the rankings made by others. For now, we are left with this question: will Obama make it to Mt. Rushmore? I have no idea. My best guess, almost two years into his presidency, however, is that he has a better shot if he does what Mike Norris did: don a Presidential Power “It’s the Fundamentals, Stupid” t-shirt and take a road trip.

Do You Know What Today Is?

It’s the 84th day of the Obama administration. And do you know what’s significant about this, the 84^th day, of the Obama administration? Nothing. That’s right. The 84^th day of any administration has no intrinsic significance. Accordingly, no rational person would use the 84^th day of an administration as a yardstick by which to assess that administration’s progress. It’s a bit like assessing the manager of a baseball team two games into the season. It’s like evaluating a marriage during the honeymoon. It’s like assessing my presidency course after one class (ok, that’s different – you pretty well know you are doomed after the first class).

And yet the punditocracy will have us believe that the 100^th day of Obama’s administration, which is only two weeks away, serves as a meaningful marker for assessing his presidency to date. Consider the following comment in today’s Boston Globe story covering Obama’s Georgetown economic speech (see article here): “The speech came as Obama nears his symbolic 100-day mark in office, important because that has become a traditional marker by which to judge new administrations.”

Really? “A traditional marker”? Says who? Well, the NY Times says so, since they are running a semi-regular featured titled “100 Days Starting the Job from FDR to Obama”. CNN agrees; at their website, they run an ongoing column measuring progress during Obama’s first 100 days (see here). Indeed, more often than not, you will see most major media outlets discussing the 100 days as if it was a significant milestone in any presidency.

The origins of the 100 days yardstick, as I’ve discussed before, date back to FDR’s first term, when he took office in March, 1933, during the depths of the Great Depression. As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, however, no president since has come to power under remotely similar circumstances, and so expectations that they will accomplish what FDR and the Democratically-controlled Congress did at that time are historically misleading. Consider how much has changed since 1933. To begin, FDR’s term began several months before that of the newly-elected Congress, which wasn’t normally seated until December, almost 9 months after the president took office. Roosevelt, however, called the new Congress into a special emergency session, where they proceeded to spend the next three months passing a series of legislation that has gone down in history as FDR’s First New Deal. Interestingly, the impetus for calling the special session was the need to pass special banking legislation to avoid a full collapse of the banking industry. Once Congress convened on March 9^th and passed the banking emergency act, however, FDR was persuaded to keep the Congress in session, and between March 8^th and June 16^th together they drafted and passed fifteen major legislative proposals into law. This included the Agricultural Adjustment Act that placed a floor under farm prices and provided farm subsidies, the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance system, the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority to develop hydroelectric power and help farmers in the Tennessee Valley. Some acts, such as the National Industrial Recovery act that essentially allowed businesses to act in monopolistic fashion to raise prices and set wages, under government supervision, were later declared unconstitutional.

Some of the legislation has particular relevance today. More than 40% of the nation’s 4 million homeowners faced foreclosure when FDR took office. To prevent a housing meltdown, FDR and Congress created the Homeowners Loan Corporation. It was charged with making loans, and refinancing existing mortgages, often by replacing risky mortgages with longer, fixed rate ones to reduce the foreclosure threat. This led to the establishment of the Federal Home Administration (FHA) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA) which helped provided a secondary market for mortgages and led to a vast increase in home ownership in this country. Finally, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and the PWA (Public Works Administration) were established to create government-back employment opportunities

But it would be a mistake to view this as a “legislative program” developed through careful design (despite FDR’s fireside chat arguing the contrary – see here). Instead, Roosevelt and his “brains trust” largely played without a playbook, tackling problems one by one as they needed to be addressed, but without an overarching philosophy beyond the willingness to try anything. Often FDR pursued policies – as in cutting the veteran’s benefits from the federal budget while at the same time increasing expenditures on emergency spending programs – that can only be viewed as contradictory. In the end, if the First New Deal did not succeed in ending the economic depression, it did at least appear to right the foundering ship of state. More importantly, as I’ve argued elsewhere, he forever changed the public’s expectations regarding the government’s role in maintaining economic growth and a social safety net.

Here’s a timeline of FDR’s 100 Days, using documents at the Presidency Research Project (see here).

March 4^th 1933 FDR Inauguration

March 6^th Bank Holiday

March 9^th Emergency Session of Congress. Passage of Emergency Banking Act.

March 10^th Economy Act sent to Congress

March 12^th First Fireside Chat

March 13^th Banks begin to reopen

March 16^th Farm Bill sent to congress to remedy lack of purchasing power of farmers.

March 20^th Economy Act Passed into law cutting Veteran’s benefits (a huge chunk of the federal budget at the time) by 50%. Although FDR’s budget director was pleased with this, Roosevelt later began moving away from balanced budgets as a way to combat the Depression.

March 21^st Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) bill sent to Congress.

March 22^nd Beer-wine revenue bill sent to Congress.

March 27^th Farm Credit Administration created by Executive Order. (This essentially merged 9 separate agencies.) Farm Mortgage Relief Act proposed.

March 31^st CCC passed into law. Initially designed to create 250,000 jobs among unemployed young adults. Created more than 2 million by the end of the program in 1942. CCC workers worked in largely rural areas, clearing deadwood, establishing trails and shelters, working on flood control and fire suppression and stocking fisheries.

April 5^th Farm Mortgage Relief passed into law.

April 7^th Beer sales were legal for the first time since Prohibition began in 1920. Tax revenues began flowing into government.

April 10^th Congress sent legislative proposal for Tennessee Valley Authority.

April 19^th In reaction to the slumping value of the dollar, FDR takes the US dollar off the gold standard.

May 7^th Second Fireside Chat. Reviews progress after 60 days.

May 12^th To combat unemployment the Federal Emergency Relief Act creates FERA, with $500 million, ½ directed to the states, ½ available as matching funds for state programs. This later became the Works Progress Administration.

Agricultural Adjustment Act and Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, to reduce $200 million worth of surplus production (accomplished by ploughing crops under, set acreage aside to lie fallow, and livestock reductions).

May 18^th Passage of TVA: 650 mile navigable water way to be built from Knoxville TN to Paducah KY, with construction of dams, power plants, fertilizer production, intended for direct economic benefit on 7 state area affected. Often hailed as a model of a new public/private partnership.

May 27^th Federal Securities Act passed, established the Securities and Exchange Commission, headed by Joseph Kennedy, father of future president John Kennedy.

June 5^th Senate and House by Joint Resolution abrogate the gold clause in private and public contracts, and back paper currency as legal tender.

June 13^th Homeowners’ Loan Corporation enacted, empowered to refinance mortgages, make loans, and advance cash for tax payments and repairs.

June 16^th Several key pieces of legislation passed, including:

-The Banking Act of 1933, aka “Glass-Steagall” Act passed into law. This legislation created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and protected bank deposits up to $5,000, separated commercial from investment banking, forced banks to get out of the business of financial investment, banned the use of bank deposits in speculation. It was the repeal of portions of this act during Clinton’s presidency that some believe contributed to the current economic crisis.

-The National Industrial Recovery Act, including Title 2 creating the Public Works Administration. The NIRA had three parts. Title I suspended the provisions of anti-trust legislation on price fixing, and a enacted a tremendous boost to industrial trade unions by promoting collective bargaining. Title II allocated $3.3 billion for public works, to build and repair federal buildings, roads, bridges, and dams. Title III consisted of a list of Congressionally-initiated projects.

-The Farm Credit Act. Legislation which concluded the process begun when FDR issued an executive order establishing the Farm Credit Administration. This provided easier refinancing of farm mortgages, and brought foreclosures to a halt.

When this special session of Congress ended, someone compared the period of legislative productivity to Napoleon’s celebrated 100 days after he left exile in Elba and briefly regained power in France in 1814. And so FDR’s “100 Days” were immortalized, with the unfortunate result that every successive president’s first 100 days is inevitably compared to FDR’s. But what president since Roosevelt has taken office with unemployment at 25%, with the banking system on the brink of collapse, with deflation threatening farmers’ livelihood, the nation’s housing system near a total meltdown? – well, you get the picture. There existed a real possibility that the nation’s economic – and by extension the political – system was on the verge of collapse. Even the most dire descriptions of the current economic crisis pale in comparison.

We can see (I hope) that measuring Obama’s progress using the 100 days yardstick is an utterly asinine exercise, and worse – it is counterproductive because it creates unrealistic expectations for what presidents can reasonably hope to accomplish three months into their presidency. More often than not, presidents set themselves up for failure by promising – as Clinton did with health care reform in 1993 – to pass major legislation within 100 days of taking office. When they inevitably fail to succeed in meeting the artificial timetable, they are taken to task by the media (never mind that the yardstick is wholly a media creation!). And yet in two weeks, we will be inundated with “100 days” stories comparing progress (or lack thereof) during the Obama administration with progress during previous presidencies. And the Obama White House, while ostensibly downplaying any significance to the day, will nonetheless dutifully roll out talking points demonstrating just how much has been accomplished on his watch so far.

Well, such foolishness may suffice for the Times or CNN, but I’m warning you now – come the 100^th day there will be none of this nonsense on this blog. You deserve better. And you’ll get it here. I expect to devote that entire day to a discussion of Mark (‘The Bird”) Fidrych’s short but spectacular baseball career. Let me begin by noting that he graduated from my high school.

Now that’s something to celebrate.

Independents and Obama: How Polarized is the Public?

In the last several posts I have been presenting evidence indicating that rather than the “post-partisan” presidency promised during his campaign, Obama has in fact proved every bit as polarizing as his immediate predecessors. With hindsight, some of you are now arguing that there was no reason to expect Obama to be anything but a partisan president, but a careful read of his campaign speeches clearly indicates that he held out hope for a change in the tone of Washington politics, in addition to a change in policy direction. And, contrary to what many of you are now saying, at the time of his election not a few of you believed he would in fact bring not just a new policy direction, but also a new more civilized mode of political discourse on Capitol Hill. Indeed, if I heard a variation of the following refrain from colleagues and students once, I heard it 100 times: “I’m really optimistic that Obama’s election will finally end the partisan bickering in Washington.” Admit it – you were one of those who believed, weren’t you? (You know who you are!)

Of course, this was never likely to happen, as I quietly tried to suggest in my earlier blog postings and talks during the transition and aftermath of the inauguration. My goal in harping on this theme is not to cast myself as a latter-day Cassandra. Instead, it is to make three broader teaching points. (After all, that’s the point of this blog!) First, there was an inherent tension in Obama’s promise to bring policy change AND to lower the degree of partisan bickering on Capitol Hill. He was unlikely to accomplish both objectives and, in the end, not surprisingly chose partisanship and policy change over bipartisanship. To do otherwise – to pursue a more bipartisan strategy – would have required an enormous expenditure of political capital. Second, the polarized politics that have characterized presidential-congressional relations are not due primarily to the actions of any single president, but instead are largely the result of the confluence of several long-term trends in American politics. By understanding why polarization exists, we are less likely to be disappointed by Obama’s failure to change that tone – it really has little to do with his skills or style of leadership. Similarly, once we understand the sources of polarization, we are better able to adopt a more realistic assessment of previous presidents’ culpability for the current state of affairs. Third – and this is one of the main reasons why I write this blog – Obama’s failure to usher in the era of the post-partisan presidency reminds us that presidents possess much less influence than pundits and journalists would have us believe. Ours is not a presidential form of government so much as it is a congressionally-centered system.

Some of you are now arguing that partisanship may be a good thing, or at least less worrisome, as long as policy change occurs. I will devote a separate post examining this question, in part by looking at the production of legislation under various partisan permutations. But note that partisanship is not without its costs. Eventually, a polarized debate on Capitol Hill will filter down to the public, and we will see Obama’s popularity approval ratings exhibit the same polarized division that characterized Bush’s support. Indeed, this is already happening; in the aftermath of congressional passage of the economic stimulus bill followed by the first budget resolution – both of which took place with almost no Republican support – we already see Obama’s popularity exhibiting Bush-like characteristics. According to Amy Walter at the National Journal the latest Diageo/Hotline poll shows that just 19 percent of Republicans thought more government involvement in the economy is a good idea, compared with 79 percent of Democrats. “Asked if they think the stimulus plan will be successful in turning the economy around, 72 percent of Republicans said no while 86 percent of Democrats said yes” (see article here).

Of course, it may not be surprising that Republicans – only 9% of whom supported Obama in the election – are registering disapproval of Obama in increasing numbers, based in large part on his economic policies, while Democratic support remains high. But what of the key swing group, the independents? By the end of Bush’s presidency, only about 30% of independents approved of his job as president. Obama won the independent vote in November by 52-44, and so far, his support among this group remains strong. According to the March 30-April 5 Gallup Poll (see table below), his approval among independents is 60% – almost exactly what it was on inauguration day and pretty much where it has remained ever since.

However, Walter, citing the Diego poll, notes that those independents who said they “strongly” approve of the job Obama is doing dropped 13 points between the end of January and the end of March. She also notes that that independents’ support for Congressional Democrats is softening as well: “From the beginning of March to the end of the month, the approval ratings of congressional Democrats among independent voters dropped 10 points, from 48 percent to 38 percent. Same goes for the generic ballot test. In our most recent poll, independents gave a slight edge to Republicans (26 percent to 23 percent) — a 6-point drop for Democrats since early March.”

As yet, the drop in independents’ support for Democrats has not translated into an increase in their support for Republicans now in Congress. Walters notes that, “Just 26 percent of independents approve of the job Republicans are doing in Congress (a 4-point drop since early March). The 26 percent that Republicans are getting in the generic matchup is unchanged since early March as well.” We see, then, that among independents, support for Obama is strong, but potentially softening. However, most of the erosion in independent support seems focused on the Democrats in Congress. Whether and to what degree that will extend to a loss of support for Obama depends, I believe, in large part on perceptions regarding the economy. Polarization within the public becomes a major problem, I argue, when it includes a loss of support among independents, and not just Republicans.

So, why does polarization exist? One reason is the efforts by well-meaning reformers to reduce the influence of money on elections. Many of you will recall that in his 2004 run for the Democratic nomination for president, Howard Dean trumpeted the fact that a huge proportion of his campaign contributions came in small amounts, often under $200. In 2008, Barack Obama picked up on this theme, arguing that he was broadening popular participation in elections by attracting financial support from those who represented the “average”, less wealthy voter, rather than the “fat cats” who typically funded campaigns. In their view, the internet was “democratizing” presidential campaigns. As my colleague Bert Johnson’s research reveals, however, this is not what was happening – at least not in the way that the Dean-Obama campaigns would have us believe. Their fundraising strategy did not mobilize the less partisan, middle-of-the-road voter. In fact, it benefitted from – and may actually have contributed to – the increased partisan polarization that characterizes American politics today. To understand why, and to appreciate some really innovative research, I want to devote the next post to Bert’s research on campaign finance. He tells a fascinating – and counterintuitive – story that merits a full discussion, and helps illustrate two of Dickinson’s three laws of politics: “Money always finds its way to candidates” and “For every positive benefit from a political reform, there is an equal and unanticipated negative reaction.”