Executive Branch

The Executive Branch of government is described in Article II of the United States Constitution. Read Section 1 of Article II.

The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the vice president, chosen for the same term, be elected.

executive: related to the carrying out of laws

vested in: given to

King of the United States?

The Framers did not agree on how much power to grant the president or on how to choose him. For example, Alexander Hamilton proposed a vision of the presidency based on the British system:

• • The president would be chosen by special electors, not by the people.

  • The president would serve a life term, rather than a four-year term.

However, the other delegates at the Constitutional Convention dismissed Hamilton's proposal. They thought it was undemocratic. Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from New York, explained the problem this way:

It is the most difficult . . . to balance the executive. Make him too weak: the legislature will usurp his powers. Make him too strong: he will usurp on the legislature.

usurp: take

An executive leads or manages something. He or she makes decisions about how to achieve an organization's goals.

Do states have executives, too?

Yes! States have executives called governors. As the leader of a state's executive branch, a governor is responsible for the following things:

• carrying out state laws

• leading the departments in the executive branch of the state

The governors of New Hampshire and Vermont are elected to two-year terms. Governors in the other 48 states serve four-year terms.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The White House is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Since 1800, every president has lived in the White House.

President Theodore Roosevelt coined the term "White House" in 1901. Before that, the house had gone by several other names, including the "Executive Mansion," the "President's House," and the "President's Palace."

Rebuilding and renovations

The White House was rebuilt after British troops set fire to it during the War of 1812.

Since then, the White House has been renovated many times.

The Oval Office

The president's official office is the Oval Office. This office was first built in 1909, during President William Howard Taft's administration.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rebuilt the original Oval Office after it was destroyed by fire.

When does a vice president become president?

The vice president would become president in any of these situations:

• The president dies.

• The president resigns.

• The president is removed from office.

• The president is unable to carry out his or her duties.

What other duties does the vice president have?

• serving as president of the United States Senate

• breaking tie votes in the United States Senate

What is it like to be vice president?

Apart from serving as president of the Senate, the vice president does not have many official duties. In 1793, Vice President John Adams explained what he thought about the vice presidency:

My country has in its wisdom contrived for me, the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

—Vice President John Adams, letter to his wife (1793)

contrived: created

office: job

Many recent vice presidents have helped their presidents make decisions. Vice presidents also attend many meetings and ceremonies.

The president has a cabinet made up of the vice president and leaders of major departments in the federal government. These leaders advise the president.

What kinds of things do cabinet members advise the president on?

• whether and how to become involved in conflicts in other countries

• whether to open a new national park

• how to address climate change

• how to fight poverty

• how to reduce crime

• how to repair the nation's highways

A different kind of secretary

Most heads of cabinet-level departments are called "secretaries." For example, there is a Secretary of Defense and a Secretary of State.

An exception is the head of the Department of Justice. He or she is called the Attorney General, not secretary.

What other departments are represented in the cabinet?

Currently, the cabinet is made up of the heads of 15 departments, including the following:

• Department of Education

• Department of Energy

• Department of Homeland Security

• Department of Transportation

• Department of Veterans Affairs

There are more than 65 independent agencies in the federal government. Independent agencies are established by Congress, but they are part of the executive branch. Each independent agency fulfills a smaller function than a cabinet-level department. For example, the National Archives and Records Administration houses and maintains federal records.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) runs the nation's non-military space program. It was established as an independent agency of the executive branch in 1958.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is responsible for offering mail delivery throughout the United States. The postal service has existed since the founding of the country. In 1971, the USPS was created as an independent agency.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) supplies the president and other officials with information about foreign countries, groups, and individuals. The CIA was officially established in 1947.

Most people who work in the executive branch are neither elected by the people nor nominated by the president. These workers are part of the federal bureaucracy, or a group of unelected government workers who work in the federal government.

How many people work in the federal government?

• • There are more than 2.6 million civilian workers in the executive branch.

  • There are more than 1.4 million people in uniform in the military.

  • There are more than 63,000 workers in the legislative and judicial branches.

The Constitution states that the president must give "Congress information of the state of the Union." Congress will sometimes use that information to decide what issues to focus on.

President Ronald Reagan delivers the 1984 State of the Union address. The vice president and Speaker of the House stand behind him.

The State of the Union

• Since 1913, most presidents have given a State of the Union address, or speech, before Congress. Before that time presidents delivered a written State of the Union to Congress.

• In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt coined the term, "State of the Union," in reference to the language in the Constitution. Before then, the speech was called "the President's annual message to Congress."

More than 1,200 federal government positions require presidential nomination. The Senate then has the power to either accept or reject these nominees. When the Senate accepts someone, this is called confirming the nomination.

Which positions need Senate confirmation?

Here are some of the most important positions requiring Senate confirmation:

• • members of the cabinet

  • ambassadors to other nations

  • justices on the Supreme Court and judges on federal courts

Other lesser-known positions also require Senate confirmation:

• • Federal Co-Chair, Northern Border Regional Commission

  • U.S. Executive Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

  • members of the Railroad Retirement Board

What happens if the Senate doesn't confirm a presidential appointment?

The position remains vacant, or empty, until the Senate confirms a person nominated by the president.

• In recent years, around 10 percent of positions requiring Senate confirmation remained empty. How would this affect a department's ability to do its job?

• In 2016, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, leaving a vacancy on the nine-member court. Congress decided not to hold hearings on the president's nominee to replace Scalia. As a result, the Court had just eight members for the remainder of the Court's session.

The president is the commander in chief of the United States military.

What does the commander in chief command?

As the commander in chief, the president works with many people to oversee all five branches of the armed services: the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, and Navy.

In addition, the president oversees the National Guard, the Reserves of the branches of the armed forces, and civilian employees in the Department of Defense. Altogether, the U.S. military employs more than two million people!

Presidents are able to issue executive orders. Executive orders do not have to be approved by Congress.

What else is true about executive orders?

• • They must be directed at agencies and officials serving in the executive branch. This includes most of the federal government.

  • They can be struck down as unconstitutional by the judicial branch. Congress can pass legislation that specifically goes against an executive order.

  • However, the president would probably veto this legislation. It is extremely difficult for Congress to find enough votes to override a presidential veto.

What are some famous executive orders?

• During the Civil War, President Lincoln's "Emancipation Proclamation" granted freedom to enslaved people behind Confederate lines.

• During World War II, President Roosevelt issued an executive order that allowed the government to force people of Japanese ancestry in the United States to move to internment camps.

• In 1948, President Truman desegregated the United States armed forces through an executive order. In other words, he ordered the armed forces to stop separating members based on race.

There are often tensions over how the branches of government should exercise their power. For example, some people feel that the president's ability to issue executive orders takes away from Congress's law-making powers.

How much power should the executive branch have?

People disagree. Below are two views of executive power. The first view is from an editorial published in 1952 in the New York Times. The second view is from a speech by former president Harry S. Truman in 1954.

It has seemed to many of us that [presidential powers] have been overextended during the past few years and that the time has come to redefine and limit them.

—editorial in the New York Times (1952)

It is not the business of Congress to run the agencies of government for the president. Unless this principle is observed, it is impossible to have orderly government. The legislative power will ooze into the executive offices.

—former President Harry S. Truman (1954)

What do you think? Do you agree with either argument?

Voting in a presidential election is one of the most important ways to interact with the executive branch. But people can interact with the executive branch in other ways, too. For example, anyone can write a letter to the president!

How much mail does the president receive?

In 2009, the president received about this much mail:

• • 65,000 letters every week

  • 100,000 emails every day

  • 1,000 faxes every day

How do I write a letter to the president?

There are several ways to send a message to the president:

• • Fill out a form on the White House's website.

  • Type a letter on 8 ½ by 11 inch paper.

  • Write a letter very neatly, in pen.

Then, if you have written a paper letter, mail it to the White House.

Who can be president?

According to the Constitution, the president must meet these three criteria:

• • be a native-born United States citizen, or someone born a United States citizen

  • be at least 35 years old

  • have lived in the United States for at least 14 years

In a presidential election, the Electoral College votes to decide who becomes president.

What happens after the Electoral College vote?

At the inauguration, the president-elect and the vice president elect officially take over as president and vice president, respectively. The inauguration is held in January.

The Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution set rules about how many terms a president can serve in office. Each presidential term is four years long. Read the text from the Twenty-Second Amendment.

No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of [someone else's term] shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.

—Amendment XXII (passed by Congress in 1947, ratified by the states in 1951)

Why are there term limits for the presidency?

Following George Washington's lead, no president served more than two terms until 1941. In that year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began to serve his third term in office. Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term in 1944. He died in office in 1945, after serving a total of 12 years in office.

After Roosevelt died, Congress passed a constitutional amendment to limit the number of times a person could be elected president. It was ratified by the states in 1951.

How long can a president serve?

The Twenty-Second Amendment states that a person can only be elected president twice. But someone who takes over the job of president from a previous president can spend two years in office before being elected. Therefore, it is possible that a president can serve a total of ten years!