Explain why presidental power today is so much greater that what is described in the Constitution?

Question

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

1st-Congress gave the Presidents more power through legislation, mostly in the 20th century and enlarged the role of the President and gave the President increased responsibilities.

2nd-Presidents took advantage of the vague language of the Constitution to interpret it as granting the President greater power, Examples: Lincoln unilaterally acting against Confederates and T. Roosevelts "stewardship" ideal of the president, which opened the way for later "activist" presidents.

3rd-In an era of mass communication, the public has come to see the President as representative of the whole U.S. Government and Presidents have taken advantage of that. Examples: Wilson's State of the Union Addresses, FDRs Fireside Chats, Kennedy's Press Conferences, etc.

The combination of these things have shifted much of US policycraft away from Congress and onto the President.

Answer 2

Because, in the Spring of 1933, President Franklin Delano delivered information on the State of the Union to the Congress, as called for in Article Two of the Constitution. Since the nation was in the midst of an economic depression, he also recommended to their consideration a group of measures he judged were necessary and expedient to correct the State of the Union. That, too, is called for in Article Two. But, FDR drove a truck through that paragraph in Article Two and set the course for an activist Presidency and a shift of power to the Executive Branch through Congressional passage of those measures. The Supreme Court, in its role of judicial review, only found one of those measures to be repugnant to the Constitution and therefore null and void. That was the law mandating the National Recovery Administration.

Over the next six decades there has been little effort to having the pendulum swing back to pre-1933 times when the Presidency was pretty much defined by the powers set forth in the rest of Article Two.