How a President Might Actually Govern

As I’ve said the last two days, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time the past 40 years thinking how a president could get a handle on the executive branch of the government. Technically, the Constitution says he’s in charge of that wing. Reality says he isn’t. So how can he gain control?
There are a couple of things that come to my mind. One—walk around. Have all of your cabinet officers, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries (all of the people who answer directly to the president get out of their secretary shielded offices and walk around.
Even the president himself—on a slow news day—get out and walk. I remember when I was at Health, Education and Welfare in the 1960s, people still remembered Nelson Rockefeller with a bit of awe. He was an assistant secretary under Eisenhower in 1953-4. He was also the only cabinet level officer any one could ever remember walking the halls.
The secretary at the door of every program knows an awful lot about what that program does and why. (Rarely does any executive, government or private industry, know as much as his secretary. They’re a lot like wives that way.) When a cabinet level officer shows up in front of her desk, with a big Rockefeller grin, and starts chatting and asking, she’s going start telling.
After all, her visitor represents real power—power that almost never shows up at the program level. She really has no choice but to answer the questions she’s asked. If she calls her boss, he has to answer too. And she knows he’d probably rather not be called. So she answers.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. President, you’ll learn a lot about your department that way. You’ll even remind its lowest level employees who the boss is—and that he’s alert, watching, aware. After you’ve chatted with several program chiefs and secretaries, your questions will be more knowledgeable and penetrating. You’ll sound like you actually know what’s going on. That will alarm them.
I have one more thought. Remember, I started this series by pointing out that unlike a CEO in private industry, a president cannot enforce his will be firing anybody. That badly cripples him. Realistically, you’re not going to overturn the Hatch Act. Better luck with Roe v Wade.
As it stands now, millions of federal employees are going to go on working to retirement, secure from being fired—at least for something as minor as allowing a President’s program to drop between the cracks. As long as he’s not guilty of overt defiance, he’s pretty much home free. (Besides there’s an excellent chance he’ll get all the way to retirement without ever meeting anyone who actually speaks for the administration.)
But there is something else Obama could try. He just might be able to make it happen because he has a large majority in both houses of Congress. Very early, preferably before January 20, he should sit down with the Democratic leadership in Congress.
He should make the point that he will take office with no real control over the executive branch—and yet he will be held responsible. American voters may even become unhappy if certain programs they were promised in the campaign do not come to pass. Congressmen understand this sort of reasoning.
Also, the normal fear that a Congress made up of one party might have at the thought of an effective president of the other party really running the executive offices will not be in play. They’re all in the same party now. So Obama might be able to talk them into it. Maybe.
I would ask for (no more than) one hundred chits. I would request legislation granting me the authority to discharge one hundred federal employees over the next four years. No pension, no appeal, no reinstatement. A prospect absolutely terrifying to a federal employee (with no social security).
Obviously—and Congress could see this—no president is going to use those chits promiscuously. He’s going to husband them. They will be like the atomic bomb—always there but rarely actually used. But any bureau chief or program director talking to the president or a cabinet officer will be very, very aware of them. It will make him far more tractable than he would otherwise be.
The president should use two or three of them early on—to show they really exist and he has the nerve actually to use them. Then just hold them in reserve until they really need to be used.
A president and cabinet who actually call in program chiefs and talk to them; officials who get up and walk the halls; and a president who has the power to fire—if only a few—that will result in an administration that has a reasonable handle on what’s going on and the ability to direct what is happening.
You will have the first president since, possibly, Andrew Jackson who makes a serious effort to take responsibility for what happens in the executive branch.