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Over the past century, we have come to see
the presidency as the principal source of the legislative agenda that
Congress considers, and we tend to regard the enactment of the
president's program as the key test of his efficacy. In the process, we
have played down the importance of presidential management. The travails
of the Affordable Care Act have reminded us that this understanding of the presidency is distorted—and reflects a neglectful reading of the Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton,
in defending the presidency that the proposed Constitution would
establish, remarked that "the true test of a good government is its
aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration." The
Federalist's co-author famously saw "energy in the executive" as a
leading characteristic of good government, in large part because such
energy is "essential to the steady administration of the laws." Section 3
of Article II of the Constitution states: The president "shall take
care that the Laws be faithfully executed." The occupant of the office
is rightly (and revealingly) called the chief executive.
In
the early days of the Republic and for much of its history, executing
and administering the law mostly involved enforcement. With the rise of
the administrative state, a step prior to enforcement became essential.
This involved translating Congress's will into terms specific enough to
be workable and providing the means of administration. The chief
executive's role expanded correspondingly to include ultimate
responsibility for regulations and for the administrative activities of
an increasingly complex executive branch beyond the White House.
Source: William Galston, "An Executive Without Energy," The Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2013
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