Executive Branch

The executive branch of government is responsible for administering the laws passed by Congress. The President of the United States is the effective head of the executive branch of government as well as head of state.

In November of each leap year (1800…1900…1980, 1984, 1988, etc.) a President is elected to serve for exactly four years from a fixed day in the following January. The four-year rhythm has never been broken.

The Vice-president, who is elected with the President, is assigned only two constitutional duties: 1) to preside over the Senate; however, the vice-president may vote only in the event of a tie; 2) to assume the presidency – for the unexpired part of the four years – which could be 3¾ or only three months – if the President dies, becomes disabled, or is removed from office.

The founders of the Constitution thought of the President as a replacement for the English King, and did not expect any president to resign, though the old device of impeachment was available for Congress to remove a President by a special kind of political trial. Up to 1974 no president had resigned, and the only attempt at impeachment had failed.

A constitutional amendment of 1967 made new arrangements for the succession, so that if a Vice-President in office dies or resigns the Senate elects a new one.

In 1973, while a Senate Committee was discovering facts about President Nixon which were leading people to talk of his possible impeachment or resignation, it was found that Vice-President Agnew was involved in another scandal. Agnew resigned, but before he did so Nixon had informally proposed that Gerald Ford, the Republican leader in the House of representatives, should be the new Vice-President in his place, and the Senate elected Ford without a contest. Then in 1974, when Nixon resigned rather than face certain impeachment, Ford automatically became President, and the Senate appointed Nelson Rockfeller as Vice-President, on Ford’s nomination and without a contest. So from August 1974 to January 1977 both President Ford and Vice-President Rockfeller held office without having been elected, but appointed through consultation.

A person elected as Vice-President expects that he will have no defined function (except, curiously, to preside over the Senate) unless he happens to be thrust into the highest office through the chance of the President’s death – though some Vice-Presidents have been given real work to do (particularly Nixon under Eisehower in 1952-60) and most Vice-Presidents during a second term regard the office as a useful base from which to try to win their party’s next candidature for the Presidency, as Nixon did in 1960, Humphrey in 1968, and Bush in 1988.

Out of 19 men elected to the Presidency between 1840 and 1960, four were assassinated (John F. Kennedy in 1963) and four died in office, so eight of the men elected as Vice-Presidents before Ford acceded to the highest office – and in May 1945 Vice President Truman became President only four months after the four-year period had began.

A Vice-President who succeeds to the Presidency is well-placed for getting his party’s nomination, and for being elected President in his own right, when his term as substitute expires.

Until 1951 there was no limit to the number of four-year terms for which a person could be elected as President. Up to 1940 eight had served for two full terms but none for a third.) In 1940 Franklin Roosevelt was elected for a third term, and in 1944 for a fourth, cut short by his death. In 1951 a constitutional amendment set a limit of two terms – that is, eight years.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20