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The On the Hill: Breaking Down DC podcast is a collection of sharing more about what’s happening in DC without the bias, ways for you to get involved with the US government, and interviews with friends, colleagues who can help pull back the proverbial curtain of Washington, DC. Katherine Getty, host of the OTH podcast, is a 10-year Washingtonian who lives and breathes politics.
Katherine Getty 0:01
Hi, and welcome to the on the Hill podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty. Each Thursday, I'll peel back the curtain of what happens in Washington, from breaking down current events without bias, to interviews with fellow political nerds, and even and maybe most importantly, ways for you to get involved with our US government. Welcome back to another episode of The on the Hill podcast with me your host, Katherine Getty, please excuse the rather raspy voice, I've come back from travel with a little bit of a cold. So this is a this is a special edition of the on the Hill podcast. But you know, for many of you across America, if you're listening in real time, you had a day off of work earlier this week to celebrate Presidents Day. So in honor of that holiday, I want to keep setting the stage giving you a refresher of pieces of the US government. And this week, this episode will be all things executive branch, it's pretty fitting, because we are also right square in the middle of the 2024 presidential election. I'm sure you haven't noticed it all, with choices looking to be rather baked in. So rematch of 2020. And I can sense your excitement as you're listening, I can feel a smile spreading across your face. But let's take a step back. And I hope that your blood pressure comes down as I give you some of the amazing foundation of this branch of government. So in today's episode, I'm gonna give you a few things. First, I'm going to define with the executive branches. And second, I'm going to go into the roles and powers that ranks within the president. So you know, the President is a member of the executive branch, so can give you those two things as well. So first, let's define the executive branch. The executive branch has powers are vested in the President of the United States, who's the head of the state in the commander in chief of the armed forces. The President implements policies that are passed by Congress and appoints heads of federal agencies. I think a lot of this makes sense. You remember at the beginning of a, of a new president, they have new Cabinet Secretaries coming in implementing the new vision. They're working with Congress on passing what the President views should be the laws, but Congress will always, you know, tell, you know how the last stand on that because they get to pass the actual laws, the president only signs them, you know, within the executive branch was also the Vice President, who is ready to assume the presidency should the need ever arise. There's a line of succession, I could do a whole episode on that. But the Vice President is also a part of the executive branch. And then when you think more broadly, because there's fun fact, nearly 4 million Americans that are part of the executive branch, which, when I was doing the research for this, I was pretty astounded by that, that size and figure, I think I thought it was a little bit smaller. But there's 4 million people and within the executive branch, so there's the President, the Vice President, the Cabinet Secretaries, the independent federal agencies that have that day to day enforcement and administration of federal laws, think of, you know, DEA, so Drug Enforcement Agency, or the Department of Defense, or the Environmental Protection Agency, each of these agencies are very different and have very different roles, but they come from the office, you know, they they run down from the executive branch. And I think that's important, because the President does have a lot of say in how those agencies implement and apply the federal laws. But at the end of the day, they do have to follow the law. So, you know, that's kind of where the executive branch is. And shout out to whitehouse.gov for all the research for that. I had some of the sense of knowledge, but I think it was interesting, the 4 million figure in other pieces, and I was like, Oh, this is a good refresher. So we know now what the executive branch is part of the US government, President, Vice President cabinet, 4 million people are part of the executive branch and their roles and responsibilities of their jobs. And then, you know, given who was Presidents Day earlier this week, I want to dive into the the role and the powers that rests with the President. I think it's good as we are starting to think through who maybe we're going to support, if we don't remember from 2020, who are going to support for President, thinking about what the role is meant to be, you know, or thinking about how the role is defined and what those powers are. Because oftentimes, it's easy to start to pick people based on you know, personality or maybe not their personality, maybe how they are going to implement laws. And I think it's good to understand what the role has as a basis. So, you know, who can be president I think that's a good fundamental question the answer. Now under Article Two of the Constitution The president must be at least 35 years old, be a natural born citizen and must have lived in the US for at least 14 years. And what does President do? So what are the powers? The President, a member of the executive branch, like we've referenced before, is responsible for the execution and enforcement of the laws graded by Congress, thinking about the CO equal branches of government, judicial, legislative and executive, the executive has a really important role for implementing. And I think that's a really good way to kind of think about Congress creates the, you know, the executive implements, there are 15 executive departments, there will not be a quiz at the end of this episode, don't
worry, that are led by appointed members of the President's cabinet. So think of the President's Cabinet as trusted advisors, they can be subject matter experts. So maybe, you know, a nurse or a doctor is the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, or currently, a former teacher is the head of the Department of Education. So subject matter experts are leading these. That's not to say that's always happen. There is sometimes a bit of who is friends with who, or maybe they were a lawyer. And so they can apply things to another role, trying to dig in an example of that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be in the field to be the let the leader of a cabinet. So the cabinet is joined by executive agency. So think CIA, Environmental Protection Agency. And while the heads are not a part of the cabinet, they are under the full authority of the President. So they are implementing kind of the President's vision and there are powers the President has, we will get to those that he can that these agency leaders can implement. The President also appoints heads of more than 50 independent federal commissions. Think the Federal Reserve Board, we hear a lot about the Federal Reserve when rates are either going up or going down the Securities and Exchange Commission to the SEC, as well as federal judges, ambassadors and other federal offices, you've definitely seen more of a focus on federal judges and the last few presidential terms, it's always been a focus. But I think to some degree, maybe in the past, judges were, you know, someone who had worked all the way up. And now it seems to be a little bit more of how our I don't want to say judicial activism, because that I think, is a little bit too politically charged. But I think, definitely there's more of a review of how people view policy broadly, when they are being considered for federal judgeships. Is that good? Is that bad? I'm not going to, you know, editorialize. But I think it is something to think about of that has become more of a focus for parties. And is that the role of parties that's this is a food for thought moment. You know, one thing I want to highlight is the Executive Office of the President. And this is the immediate staff of the President, along with entities such as the Office of Management and Budget, and the office, the United States Trade Representative. You know, Management and Budget really have a lot of role on how money is getting dispersed. And they have a lot of control over how when money can be kind of utilized by department. The president, and this, I think, is something we all are very familiar with has the power to sign legislation into law or veto bills enacted by Congress, but Congress can override a veto with two thirds of both houses. That is a very high bar and is feel like rather unlikely to ever happen again, maybe, you know, hope should spring eternal, but the President can either sign or veto. You know, the President can also issue the White House can issue a statement of administration policy. Typically, if you're seeing a statement of administration policy, it means the President is going to veto whatever you're going to do. This is a way that the President can kind of signal to Congress yea or nay? It typically happens. You know, you've seen it this time a couple of times with President Biden issuing these state statement of administration policy towards really the house which is led by Republicans. It is very common to do this. But I think it's important to kind of frame out what are all the opportunities a president has. You'll also see kind of when, you know, thinking or the calendar year, typically there is a, you know, State of the Union address. It's to a joint session of Congress. And typically it's in January of every year. It has kind of moved in the last few years and I will say it also in, you know in an election or an inauguration year It will move, it'll move later into the year. But it is a way for the President to lay out their vision. And it helps kind of frame up what is possible within the current, you know, within the year, you know, thinking through what a State of the Union will look like this year, it's going to be in March this year. You know, it's kind of obviously much later, on much later, but it's later than January. And when you think about it in the context of the presidential election, it's going to kind of frame up what the election may look like, you know, the President Biden is going to be able to articulate some of what he has accomplished over the last year and what he is hoping to do with more time, it will be rather vague, it will not be a political speech in nature. But there will be political overtones. You can't take politics out of an election year, sadly, or maybe not to highlight if you're a political junkie, but I think it's good to kind of frame that out as well. The executive branch is also oversees law enforcement agencies, I think this is pretty self explanatory. If you think about, you know, police departments are, you know, ensuring the DOJ is ensuring that laws are being upheld. And within Police Department, you will see the DOJ do investigations if they think maybe those police departments aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. And so there's a varying, I say, all of the different aspects of being president and all the roles. You know, it's from enforcing the laws, it's from signing laws into legislation, it's from having departments and having agencies that kind of live out the the values and the mission that they they want to, you know, articulate over their four years as president. And they also will work, hopefully, with Congress, they will identify challenges and say, This is my mission, or this is what I want. This is what I was, you know, elected on, what are the laws look like? It doesn't always work out? Well, I think oftentimes, we see kind of the President in Congress at odds. And, you know, our founders really envision that CO equal branches. So the President has roles and responsibilities, just like we've talked about the House and Senate, which make up the legislative branch, just as the judicial judicial branch. I don't know why that's always so hard to say. But, you know, I think it's important to understand what are some of those powers who can be president and I know, we've dived into kind of defining what the executive branch is and explaining some of the powers of the president. But as we head into what is likely going to be another contentious presidential and vice presidential election year, I really urge you to register to vote. If you haven't listened to episode four, I talked about the how to register to vote some resources on figuring out are you registered, do you need to change your registration, and I will do another episode on this. But I also kind of want to lay out that we will go out on November 5 of this year. And maybe even if you're doing your presidential voting before, millions of Americans will vote in this presidential election, but they are voting for their electors. And a lot has been made out of the Electoral College. I think it was a little known thing, up until you know, January 6 of 2021. But the electoral college is apportioned by population to the 50 states. There's one for each member of their congressional delegation. And the District of Columbia shout out, receives three votes, these electors then cast votes on behalf of those who elected them for President. So they're currently 538 electors in the electoral college. And then what you saw on January 6, was, Congress affirms that, you know, before I close, and I know I just dropped the electoral college and have walked away. And don't worry, I'll come back to it because there's a lot to be said about it. But I want to highlight the resource that I talked about earlier whitehouse.gov. I'll link it in the show notes so that you can learn more about the executive branch and the rules of the president. But this is this episode is to be a primer to serve as a resource and a refresher, all those things combined. And as always, you can find me on Instagram. The podcast handle is on the Hill DC podcast and my personal podcast is at Katherine Getty. You can learn more about the book as more about me. As always, tune in next Thursday for another episode of The on the help podcast and thank you so much for tuning in.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai