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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. Today is President's Day. It might be the holiday that causes us the most confusion. Do we celebrate the Office of the President, even if we don't like the current occupier, if we're party loyal, do we only celebrate the ones whose politics we agree with. And of course, we all have opinions on who made a great president and who didn't. Today, on the show, you'll hear from a U of O political science professor and expert on the American president. You'll hear about the evolution of the activist president, and hear how the office is governed more by norms than laws, and why that can be so problematic. Chandler James, Assistant Professor of Political Science from the University of Oregon, Professor James, always great to talk to you. Thanks again for coming on and talking with us.
Chandler James: Michael, it's great to be back.
Dunne: it's President's Day, and I think the President occupies so much space and attention in our lives. And, you know, wanted to kind of talk generally about, sort of the evolution of the presidency. For my first question, you know, it's 250-year anniversary of the country. I'd love to get your perspective on the evolution of the Office of the President as you see it,
James: The presidency is a central institution in the United States federal framework, it is responsible for executing the law and serving as the commander in chief of the armed forces. It has a role in policy making, a role in interpreting the Constitution and in terms of executing the law. So, it has the presidency touches on all aspects of governance, and so it's clearly an important institution, even since its founding, but over time, the presidency has gotten much more powerful. So let me start in the beginning. Okay, in the founding era, the presidency was a was really just finding its footing. So, our first president, George Washington, set a lot of precedent for how the president should look and act and behave, and he was deeply concerned with instilling this office with Republican virtue, modesty, not acting like a king and but this wasn't merely instilled in the way that he acted. This was a part of the Constitution; the founders were deeply skeptical of concentrated power. You know, they had just revolted from the mother country, England, out of concern that they were being tyrannized by King George. So, they really circumscribed presidential power relative to monarchical power typical of that day, and they, in many respects, made the presidency a much weaker executive office than typical executive offices that that was common in Western Europe. Okay, and so in the early presidency, they were trying to develop this institution spread across the West, manifest destiny and deal with sectional conflict. And so, the presidency was really a weak institution in many respects, and the President was a creature of the party system. There are a few instances of of broad use of executive power when Thomas Jefferson did unilaterally. Did the Louisiana Purchase? Okay? But the most extensive example is with respect to the way that Lincoln conducted his presidency during the Civil War, and he took on broad powers to effect, effectively manage this, this internal conflict, this, this civil war, and vastly expanded presidential power. But then, after, after Lincoln, party dominance came back to the fore. Presidents were chosen by their parties, and laissez faire government, laws and the laissez faire approach to government meant that the federal government just didn't have a lot of state capacity relative to the rest of the society. But then with FDR, the presidency expanded. Presidential power expanded greatly because of institutional development. There were all types of new agencies created in response to the Great Depression in World War Two, and then the government just got bigger, and so the president became the center of this humongous apparatus that was capable of all types of new things. And then it, it was it, it was natural for power to kind of centralize in the presidency, given that all of these executive agencies were ostensibly under the President's responsibility.
Dunne: I see, and it sounds like events sort of dictated that. Is that kind of how you look at it, like, you know, you had a very hands-off approach at the founding of the country, and then shocks to the system happened, and so more power had to be sort of used by the President. And then once that was over, it kind of squelched down a bit. Is that too simplistic of a way to look at it?
James: Well, that's just one way to look at it. And in fact, many scholars do this is kind of reminiscent of partisan regime eras that a lot of scholars use where they talk about these kinds of consistent coalitions that are separated by these exogenous shocks to the system, whether that be through war or depression or something like that, and re organizing the political structure. And so that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it, which I alluded to in my previous answer, is, is through this lens of pre modern, modern presidents, it's a little bit of a cruder designation, but I think that it has a lot of usefulness, because it's a, it's, it's, it's just, it makes a lot of sense to think about a presidency, post the jet engine, right? And post TV, radio, mass communications. These are, these are, these are features of American society and government that cropped up around the time that FDR became president. And so many scholars demarcate a pre modern, modern distinction at the Roosevelt presidency just because of how much he changed the presidency, and how much the presidency changed after his time in office. And so, when we think about the size and scope of the government before FDR, you're really talking a much talking about a much smaller, less capable, less well funded government compared to the behemoth that we are familiar with now.
Dunne: I have heard this term activist president, and I'm not sure if I truly understand what it means. I'd love to for you to talk about, you know, what is an activist president, and maybe give us some historic examples of men, and they've all been men who were activist presidents.
James: I think that this somewhat speaks to what we were previously talking about in the 19th century, presidents were less likely to be what we might describe as activist presidents. They were more passive, and they we might think of them more along the lines of a clerk. They're managing the government. They're supervising, they're making sure that the laws are executed faithfully. An activist President, by contrast, is someone who is who seeks to use the government to achieve positive ends, to go beyond regular order and to do something purposively with the apparatus of the presidency and the executive branch. So, some examples of activist presidents throughout history include Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, who sought to use the government to address some social needs. He said that, and I'm going to paraphrase here anything that the Constitution that doesn't strictly forbid he has the responsibility to use all efforts to achieve goals in the public service, whereas an opposing view was put forward by his successor, Taft, who basically said anything that the Constitution doesn't explicitly say, I can do I won't do. And so FDR is kind of the canonical activist president. He came to office and issued a bunch of executive orders more than anybody else in the history of the presidency. In his first 100 days, his he passed a bunch of laws to address the depression and the calamity that that was a consequence of it. And then he marshaled all the resources of the American people to win the war, and I'm talking about World War Two, and all of this was government initiated, you know, so he's he used the government to do certain things not explicitly stated by the Constitution. And then some more, more recent examples include Lyndon Johnson, who passed acts like Medicaid and passed signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and thought that the government should be used to help the little person, to help the little man in his in his words. And then finally, another example of an activist president would be someone like Joe Biden, who, in his single term as president, was able to use the government to address a number of issues, including infrastructure climate change, through his infrastructure bill, as well as using the government to deal with the fallout from COVID- 19. So, he actually passed a lot of bills and use in so spent a lot of money basically to try to help people improve their lives.
Dunne: I see, I've heard this from pundits throughout my life, saying that all things being equal, the American public tends to like a president of one party, and perhaps a Congress with another, so that they so that compromise sort of has to happen. Is that true?
James: I don't know if, if that characterization is the way that I would look at it. Okay. My understanding is that it really depends on partisanship. So, if, if you are a Democrat, you probably want a co partisan with unified government, co partisan president with, you know, co-partisan controlled congresses. Okay, so if you're a Democrat, you probably want a Democrat house and Democrat Senate and a Democratic president. And if you're a Republican, you probably want the trifecta, but in Republican terms, and if you're out party, you know, if the President is the opposite party or a different party than you, then you're probably much more likely to want a divided government where Congress is controlled by your preferred party, to serve as a check and to make them compromise.
Dunne: Obviously, we have a president whose very front and center in our lives right now, President Trump and I, I know, and probably mostly from people who dislike the way that he governs, talk about this idea that he's broken, or is breaking many presidential norms. And I want to talk about that because, you know, as I understand it, a norm is not necessarily a law. It's, it's just kind of the way things are done, and, and if Trump is breaking those, my question to you is, how did those norms get put into place? And, perhaps, has the presidency evolved in such a way that there aren't a lot of restraints? And is that problematic?
James: So, I'm writing a book on presidential norms and their approach, and President's approach to these things. So, thank you for asking this question. I think that I scholars consider norms to be unwritten, unofficial rules that are enforced outside of official channels. So, they're, they're essentially rules that you can think of them that way. And the idea is that they're enforced through some type of punishment, but it's just not official, so there's no legal punishment, but like, there's, there's, there's some backlash that kind of motivates adherence. And so, these are really important features of constitutional governance, and scholars really emphasize how important they are, such as facilitating the peaceful transfer of power, or not using the federal government to investigate your rivals. These things kind of keep democracy functioning. But I theorize norms as technologies. I think of them not merely as rules though they are, but also as tools, strategic tools that they can that presidents can use for their advantage. And so, presidents, being as powerful as they are, have lot more flexibility to do things the way that they want to then say your typical person, okay? It just so happens that adhering to norms is often the easiest path, the path of least resistance. And norms kind of give you a set of best practices for how to do things given a certain context, certain time, certain situation. So, you know, presidents wearing a navy suit, an American flag lapel pin, that's the way that they're supposed to look. And so most presidents, they wear that because it they it helps them look presidential. And to the degree that people think that presidents should wear suits, it kind of confirms that association in their minds and allows people to think of that person as presidential. So, there is some benefit to adhering to norms. Presidents communicate their quality and character through their approach to norms. But I also say that presidents can strategically violate norms for their benefit, and they do this by They do this by distinguishing themselves from the status quo. So, if, if, if adhering to norms suggest that you are doing the thing that people think of when they think of presidents, then violating shows that you're not a part of the establishment, that you're not a part of the typical way of doing things, and that you do things differently. And it's I conceive of it as a costly signal that is to say that even though there are going to be people who negatively respond to norm violations, it can demonstrate to other people that you are committed to being different, and by taking on the backlash, that is a revelation That in fact, you are different. So, presidents communicate. They signal their quality, their type and their character through their engagement with norms. And norms are developed over time. So, Norm norms happen when a norm innovator institute some new behavior. Think about George Washington giving a farewell address and then or saying, so help me God, after swearing the oath of allegiance, which was not written into the Constitution. Well, when John Adams sees George Washington do that, he thinks, oh, that looks that worked out for him. So, John Adams, when he does the oath of office, he says, so help me God afterward. And then other presidents, they follow suit, thinking, well, if I do it like them, either it will help me or it will cost me if I don't do it like them. So, norms are institutionalized over time, when successors follow a norm innovator and then the public comes to expect. So, by public, I mean the mass public, but also journalist and other elites. So norms kind of develop over time. They evolve over time. And there, there's, there are, there are times when norms rise and then fall. So, for example, the State of the Union address. George Washington gave it as a speech before Congress. So did John Adams. But then Thomas Jefferson, because he had a fear of public speaking, gave the State of the Union address as a written report. Thereafter, his successors, James Madison, James Monroe, also gave it as a report, and that that became the new norm until Woodrow Wilson gave the State of the Union address as a speech before Congress. And this was a real norm violation. It was described as a scandalous affront at the time, but then afterward other presidents followed suit, until presidents giving the State of the Union as addressed before Congress became again the norm. And so, norms, norms can evolve over time.
Dunne: I think, if my memory serves, one of the famous minor norm busting was President Kennedy, I believe, was the first president who didn't wear a hat during the inauguration. And I think no president has worn a hat since then. If my memory serves.
James: Yeah, that's, that's a really good one, the top hat, I think he took it off. Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. So that's, that's one of my favorite ones as well.
Dunne: Chandler, who is your favorite president and why?
James: So, I couldn't just pick one. I picked three, but I'll focus on one. Abraham Lincoln, because he saved the union, Franklin Roosevelt, because he helped us, take us off the precipice of the Great Depression, and then helped lead us through one of the most dramatic wars in the history of mankind. And then finally, Barack Obama, who is, I think, a very effective president in terms of demonstrating how a president can act, essentially as a constitutional scholar, obeying the Constitution and still be an effective politician. And he was quite effective, so I appreciate his thoughtfulness, the kind of intellectual approach that he brought to how presidents should act. So not that I agreed with every policy that he advocated for, but I appreciate the mindset and the approach that he brought to his leadership capacity, which is one that recognized the necessity of being constrained by the Constitution, which is a venerable document.
Dunne: Well, I could talk to you all day about this, but we do have to go Chandler James, He's the assistant professor of political science at the U of O. Always appreciate spending some time with you. Thanks so much.
James: Thanks, Michael, for having me. It was a pleasure.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon On the Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, massive disruptions are happening at PeaceHealth and our reporter, Tiffany Eckert comes in to talk about her ongoing coverage. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon On The Record. Thanks for listening.
