Book Review Essays

A NEW ERA OF CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT Raymond Tatalovich, Lo yola UniverUty of Chicago

Louis Fisher, The Politics of Shared Powr: Congress and the Executive (Washington, D.C.: C.Q. Press, 1981) 217 pp.; ISBN 0-87187-163-7, $7.95.

Thomas M. Franck (ed.), The Tethered Presidency: Congressional Re- straints on Executive P o w r (New York: New York University Press, 1981) 299 pp.; ISBN 0-8147-2567-8, $17.50 cloth.

Hugh Heclo and Lester M. Salamon (eds.), The Illusion of Presidential Government (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981) 359 pp.; ISBN 0-86531-248-6, $32.50 cloth, $1 1.50 pbk.

Norman Ornstein (ed.), President and Congress: Assessing Reagan’s First Year (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1982) 107 pp.; ISBN 0-8447-2237-5, $6.95 pbk.

These four volumes are valuable additions to the literature on the contemporary Presidency. But their differing approaches beg the ques- tion-personified by the Neustadt-Corwin debate-whether the under- lying nature of presidential power is “political” influence or “legal” au- thority. The books by Heclo/Salamon, Fisher, and Franck study the exe- cutive in terms of statutory delegations, judicial precedent, institutional arrangements, and organizational processes, and al l three argue that the enfeebled condition of the modern Presidency more-or-less is a permanent feature of the political landscape. The importance of Ornstein‘s collection lies in i t s affirmation of the saliency of politics-not the law-in explaining Ronald Reagan’s legislative successes in 1981. Apar t from these differences, however, the tone of all four books shows that the profession‘s love affair with the “textbook“ Presidency has ended; these scholars show a healthy respect for the separation of powers as well as an appreciation of executive leadership. Bringing the rhetoric about presidential leadership to terms with the realities of a President’s power (an avowed purpose of the Heclo/ Salamon edition) is implicit in all four volumes.

In his introduction, Ornstein says that Reagan’s legislative achieve- ments in 1981 were comparable to LBJ’s and FDR’s, and this view is up- held by the four essays in this anthology. Allen Schick attributes Reagan’s budget victories to Republican unity in the Senate, the failure of House Democrats to provided an alternative, and to the President’s use of mass persuasion and lobbying in Congress. The essay by Stephen Wayne con- trasts Reagan’s congressional liaison with the Carter Administration. Unlike Jimmy Carter, Reagan chose experienced liaison aides, established domestic priorities, exploited his “honeymoon” period, and was personally involved in the legislative process. But the analysis by I.M. Destler-”Reagan, Con- gress, and Foreign Policy in 1981”-suggests that President Reagan had less impact here because foreign policy had a lower priority and lacked

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coherency. Nonetheless, Reagan's AWACS victory shows the power which a determined President can mobilize in Congress. The concluding article by Norman Ornstein contends that, unlike Jimmy Carter, Reagan capi- talized on a fundamental change in the political environment: his landslide 1980 election victory coupled with the first GOPcontrolled Senate in two decades.

Taking a cue from Richard Neustadt, Louis Fisher argues that ours is a government of "separate institutions sharing powers" rather than a separa- tion of powers system. But any similarity ends there. Fisher begins by delineating the constitutional underpinnings of "shared powers," discusses the "President as Legislator" and "Congress as Administrator," and then focuses on the bureaucracy and the status of the independent regulatory commissions. His book gives a solid overview of these topics, a welcome addition for undergraduate courses, but Fisher's conclusions are less satis- factory. The final chapter-"Representing the Public Interest''-(more a question than a declaration) asserts that the Congress, courts, the Presi- dent, and the bureaucracy are al l representative agencies in their own way. In his Epilogue, Fisher abandons Neustadt in favor of Willmoore Kendall's ("two majorities") thesis to argue that political scientists have wrongly characterized Congress as traveling the "low road of localism" whereas the President "is associated with lofty qualities such as rationality, account- ability, and a commitment to the public interest." That intellectual defense of the heroic President clouded our understanding of shared power, he says, but-as valid as his concerns are-Fisher offers no other standard by which to judge decision-makers. He simply upholds the processes of govern- ment unaffected by any substantive notion of the "public interest."

In contrast, the essays included in the Franck volume share a concern about whether Congress' involvement in foreign affairs is compatible with the requirements of diplomacy in the modern world. As Franck adds: "The tethered presidency is no remedy for past sins of imperium." The fifteen articles were authored by scholars and political leaders who attended a conference sponsored by the NYU Law School in 1979. Part I gives an overview. A "political" perspective by Theodore C. Sorensen contends that no President should dominate nor be submissive to Congress; what is needed is a reassertion of presidential leadership. An "historical" overview i s given by Louis Koenig; though we have experienced eras of presidential or congressional dominance before, certain developments today (i.e., the rise of special interests) pose a threat to the President's leadership. An "institutional" perspective is authored by Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink; her insights about how differing values and stereotypes make the State Department and Congress suspicious of each other is one of the best essays in the collection. Having less value is the "foreign" perspective by a former United Kingdom representative to the United Nations. I t s t i t le "With Whom Do You Deal? Whom Can You Trust?" aptly summarizes the problem but the argument makes l i t t le use of case studies to instruct the student.

In Part 11, NYU Law Professor Bernard Schwartz inventories the legislative veto in foreign affairs; Theodor Meron, a colleague a t NYU, uses case studies-Panama Canal Treaties, Sinai I I Agreements-to discuss

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the treaty power; and Thomas Franck argues that Congress wrongly formu- lated the details of America's "human rights" policy abroad. Two final articles in this section, by Michael Glennon and George W. Calhoun re- spectively, discuss Congress' oversight of intelligence activities and the use of executive privilege. Together they show that a President need not resort to using executive privilege to frustrate Congressmen and Senators who want classified data from the executive branch. In Part Ill ways are sug- gested to improve the executive-legislative partnership in foreign affairs. Congressman Les Aspin's account of why Congress seems unable to make substantive defense policy is very good, as i s Robert C. Cassidy's case study on how Congress and the Executive cooperated to enact the 1979 Trade Agreement Act. The article by Senator Gary Hart is less valuable, given that his task was probably the most difficult one assigned in the volume. Hart outlines a political consensus on foreign policy attractive to both liberals and conservatives: "that seeks to use the rise in power of the nongreat powers to counter the expansionistic tendencies of the Soviet Union." Just how this formulation would guide decision-making in specific instances remains to be seen.

The Heclo/Salamon edition of nine articles, based on a panel spon- sored by the National Academy of Public Administration, is an essential volume for the serious scholar. It provides a wealth of information on the administrative Presidency, but contrary to the "illusion" that the President i s in charge, it makes the argument that (says Helco) "the president must struggle even to comprehend what is going on." Allen Schick discusses a budget process out-of-control; Louis Fisher returns to his argument about the "uneasy" executive-legislative alliance in administration; and John Helmer shows how the growth of the Executive Office prevents the Chief Executive from supervising his aides, let alone actually running the govern- ment. G. Calvin Mackenzie looks a t top-level management from the 1930s until the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. Many problems affecting the recruitment of senior officials have resulted because Congress, the Exe- cutive, and academia have not agreed on what values should be reflected in government administration.

One essay by Salamon outlines alternatives to "reform" federal regulatory policy and another-which breaks new ground-shows what tradeoffs are involved in trying to create a domestic policy staff which is, among other things, both professional yet responsive to the President. Similar difficulties affect the "Manager of Prosperity" insofar as Presi- dents since Truman have relied mainly upon ad hoc arrangements to form- ulate economic policy and to coordinate administrative units. One might think that such problems do not affect national security policy, but the machinery for this purpose i s also imperfect. Anna Kasten Nelson's account of the bureaucratic infighting which accompanied the formation and imple- mentation of the National Security Act of 1947 is followed by I.M. Dest- ler's excellent article on the "rise" of the National Security Adviser. By elevating the National Security Adviser as an entity separate from the National Security Council, in addition to dismantling Eisenhower's NSC structure, John Kennedy began a process which culminated in Henry

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Kissinger (and also Brzezinski) who, Destler argues, transformed that position into “a major, visible foreign policy figure in his own right.” And Destler concludes that the tendency for Presidents to want personal, loyal, and strong advisers undermines those institutions which provide continuity to government.

The concluding essay by Lester Salamon argues for a “constitutional Presidency“ whose real power is strengthened alongside our efforts to bolster other branches of government which keep him accountable. Thus, a Chief Executive whose power is “illusory” or a “tethered” Chief Dip- lomat is, like the imperial Presidency, a danger to the regime, though in differing ways. As Alexander Hamilton admonished in Federalist No. 73, powers given to the Chief Magistrate are a “salutary check upon the legis- lative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of fac- tion, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body.”

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