Presidential+Vocabulary

Here is the Presidential Vocabulary

1. Divided government -describes a situation in which one party controls the White House and another party controls one or both houses of the United States Congress. 2. Unified Government- situation in which one party holds a majority of seats in the House and Senate and the president is a member of that same party 3. Representative democracy- variety of democracy founded on the principle of elected people representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy. 4. Direct democracy- is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. 5. Electoral college - set of electors who are selected to elect a candidate to a particular office. 6. Faithless electors- member of the Electoral College who does not vote for the candidate he or she has pledged to vote for. Faithless electors are pledged electors and thus different from unpledged electors. 7. Pyramid structure - A president's subordinates report to him through a clear chain of command headed by a chief of staff. A pyramid structure pro v ides for an orderly flow of information and decisions, but does so at the risk of isolating or misinforming the president. 8. Circular structure -Seceral of the president's assistants report directly to him. The circular method has the cirtue o f giving the president a great deal of infomation, but at the price of confusion and conflict amon gst cabinet secretaries and assistants. 9. Ad hoc structure - Seceral subordinates, cabinet officers and committees report directly to the president on different matters. An ad hoc struture allows great dlecibility, minimizes bureaucratic inertia, and generates ideas and information from disparate channels, but it risks cutting the president off from the government officials who are ultimately responsible for translating presidential decisions into policy proposals and administrative action. A method of organizing a president's staff in which several task forces, committees, and informal groups of friends and advisers deal directly with the president 10. Cabinet -The heads of the fifteen executi v e branch departments of the federal government. 11. Executive Office of the President- consists of the immediate staff of the President of the United States, as well as multiple levels of support staff reporting to the President. 12. Office of Management and Budget (OMB)- Cabinet-level office, and is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP) its mission is to assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in Executive Branch agencies 13. National Security Council (NSC)- principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. 14. Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)- agency within the Executive Office of the President that advises the President of the United States on economic policy. 15. Executive Agencies - part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the government. 16. Independent Agencies-agencies that exist outside of the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary). More specifically, the term is used to describe agencies that, while constitutionally part of the executive branch, are independent of presidential control, usually because the president's power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited. Established through separate statutes passed by the Congress, each respective statutory grant of authority defines the goals the agency must work towards, as well as what substantive areas, if any, over which it may have the power of rulemaking. These agency rules (or regulations), while in force, have the power of federal law. 17. Acting appointments- When Presidential Cabinet appointments resign, become too ill, die in office, and can no longer function in the position, a temporary member of their staff, usually a deputy or asssistant, assumes their role until the President can nominate, and the Senate approve, a new appointment. 18. Presidential honeymoon- short period after a President is inaugurated when the opposition party refrains from attack, Congress is inclined to support some of the President's initiatives, and the President receives high public approval ratings. Within a month or two partisan attacks generally resume and the honeymoon period ends. 19. Veto message and pocket veto- A message from the president to Congress stating that he will not sign a bill it has passed. Must be produced within ten days of the bill's passage. Pocket Veto is when a bill fails to become law because the president did not sign it within ten days before Congress adjourns. 20. Line-item veto- An executive's ability to block a particular procision in a bill passed by the legislature. 21. Clinton v. New York City (1998)- l egal case  in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the line-item veto as granted in the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution because it impermissibly gave the President of the United States the power to unilaterally amend or repeal parts of statutes that had been duly passed by the United States Congress. The decision of the Court, in a six-to-three majority, was delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens.

22. Executive privilege- The right to keep executive communications confidential, especially if they relate to national security. 23. United States v. Nixon (1973)- In 1973 the Supreme Court for the first time met the issue directly. A federal special prosecutor dought tape recordings of White House conversations between President Nixon and his advisers as part of his investigation of the Watergate scandal. In the case, the Supreme Cout, by a vote of eight to zero, held that while there may be a sound basis for the claim of executive privilege, especially where sensitive military or diplomatic matters are incolced, there is no "absolute unqualified Presidential privelege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances." 24. War Powers Act (1973)- federal law intended to check the power of the President in committing the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution; this provides that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." The War Powers Resolution requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto. 25. Trustee approach and Delegate model-(Trustee Approach) the view that an elected representative should act on his or her own best judgment of what public policy requires.(Delegate Model) the view that an elected representative should represent the opinions of his or her constituents. 26. Independent Counsel law- Special prosecutors, also known as independent counsels, are typically appointed to investigate and prosecute high-profile cases where the ordinary criminal justice machinery cannot be trusted to produce fair results. State and local governments occasionally use special prosecutors. However, throughout American history the most noteworthy special prosecutors have been those appointed to stand in the shoes of the U.S. attorney general, investigating the president or some other high-level executive branch official. In most cases, such an appointment is triggered by a perceived conflict of interest within the Justice Department. 27. Lame duck- A person still in office after he or she has lost a big for reelection. 28. Presidential Succession Act of 1947- establishes the line of succession to the powers and duties of the office of President of the United States in the event that neither a President nor Vice President is able to "discharge the powers and duties of the office." The Vice President ,Speaker of the House,President pro tempore of the Senate,Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior ,Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce,Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary of Homeland Security. 29. 12th Amendment - provides the procedure for electing the President and Vice President. It replaced Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, which provided the original procedure by which the Electoral College functioned. Problems with the original procedure arose in the elections of 1796 and 1800. The Twelfth Amendment was proposed by the Congress on December 9, 1803, and was ratified by the required number of state legislatures on June 15, 1804. 30. 22nd Amendment - sets a term limit for the President of the United States. The Congress passed the amendment on March 21, 1947. It was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 27, 1951. 31. 25th Amendment -deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President, as opposed to an Acting President, if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency.[1] The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 23, 1967.[2] permits the vice-president to become acting president if both the v-p and the president's cabinet determine that the president is disabled and outlines how a recuperated president can reclaim the job 32. Impeachment- Charges against a president approved by a majority of the House of Representatives. 33. Bully Pulpit- The president's use of his prestige and visibility to guide or enthuse the American public 34. Inherent power -those powers that a sovereign state holds. In the United States, the President derives these powers from the loosely worded statements in the Constitution that "the executive Power shall be vested in a President" and that the President should "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"; defined through practice rather than through constitutional or statutory law. powers over and beyond those explicitly granted in the Constitution 35. Executive orders- an order or directive issued by the head of the executive branch at some level of government. The term executive order is most commonly applied to orders issued by the President, who is the head of the executive branch of the federal government. Executive orders may also be issued at the state level by a state's governor or at the local level by the city's mayor. U.S. Presidents have issued executive orders since 1789, usually to help officers and agencies of the executive branch manage the operations within the federal government itself. Executive orders have the full force of law,[1] since issuances are typically made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress, some of which specifically delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation), or are believed to take authority from a power granted directly to the Executive by the Constitution. However, these perceived justifications cited by Presidents when authoring Executive Orders have come under criticism for exceeding Executive authority; at various times throughout U.S. history, challenges to the legal validity or justification for an order have resulted in legal proceedings. 36. Approval ratings- In the United States, presidential job approval ratings were introduced by George Gallup in the late 1930s (probably 1937) to gauge public support for the president during his presidency. An approval rating is a percentage determined by a polling which indicates the percentage of respondents to an opinion poll who approve of a particular person or program. Most often an approval rating is given to a political figure based on responses to a poll in which a sample of people are asked whether they approve or disapprove of that particular political figure. 37. Imperial presidency- phrase used by some historians and political scientists to refer to the Presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. The notion that the President is above the law and that what he orders is the law, despite conflicting provisions of the Constitution or laws passed by Congress, is the fundamental tenet of the imperial Presidency. presidents increasing their own power in the 20th century 38. Rule of propinquity- the closer (physically) :) you are to the president, the more influence you have over the president and the decisions he/she makes or those in the room with the president at the time decisions are made have the most influence (those in the room have the most power). 39. Kuh coup- When the Deutsches Kriegkuhe had a coup d'e'tat and usurped the Nixon administration after the creation of the EPA.

Caleb_Foster Ms. LeClerc's edits are in blue Tommie made a few corrections Chelsea Kozma got the joke. Class of 2007 was here.