United States Constitutional Law (2022): Overview (Part 2 of 2)

The Executive: Powers committed to the President of the United States (Article II).

Article II, Section 1, vests the executive power in the President of the United States of America. Unlike the commitment of authority in Article I, which refers to Congress only specifically enumerated powers "herein granted" and such powers as may be necessary and proper to carry out the same, Article II is all-inclusive in its commitment of the executive power in a President of the United States of America.

Enumerated powers of the President Several important powers are expressly committed to the President under Article II, Section 2. These include:

Commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Power to pardon offenses against the United States.

Power to make treaties (with consent of the Senate); and the

Power to appoint judges, ambassadors, and other officers of the United States (often requiring Senate consent).

The Presentment Clause (Article I, Section 7, cl. 2-3) grants the president the power to veto Congressional legislation and Congress the power to override a presidential veto with a supermajority. Under the clause, once a bill has been passed in identical form by both houses of Congress, with a two thirds majority in both houses, it becomes federal law.

First, the president can sign the bill into law. In this scenario there is Congressional agreement. Second, if not in agreement, the president can veto the legislation by sending the bill back to Congress, within ten days of reception, unsigned and with a written statement of his objections. Third, the president can choose not to act at all on the bill, which can have one of two effects, depending on the circumstances. If Congress is in session, the bill automatically becomes law, without the president's signature, only with a two thirds majority of both houses. If, however, Congress adjourns during that 10-day period, the bill fails to become law in a procedural device known as the "pocket veto". The bill becomes "mute".

The president approves or rejects a bill in its entirety; he is not permitted to veto specific provisions. In 1996, Congress passed, and President Bill Clinton signed, the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which gave the president the power to veto individual items of budgeted expenditures in appropriations bills. The Supreme Court subsequently declared the line-item veto unconstitutional as a violation of the Presentment Clause in Clinton v City of New York, (1998). The Court construed the Constitution's silence on the subject of such unilateral presidential action as equivalent to "an express prohibition," agreeing with historical material that supported the conclusion that statutes may only be enacted "in accord with a single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure", and that a bill must be approved or rejected by the president in its entirety. The Court reasoned that a line-item veto "would authorize the President to create a different law--one whose text was not voted on by either House of Congress or presented to the President for signature," and therefore violates the federal legislative procedure prescribed in Article I, Section 7.