Presidents as Supreme Court Advocates: Before and After the White House

Eight men who took the presidential oath also appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States as advocates. From Senator John Quincy Adams at the outset of the Marshall Court to Richard M. Nixon during the high-water mark of the Warren Court, future and past Presidents have argued before the Supreme Court on such varied and important topics as land scandals in the South, slavery at home and on the high seas, the authority of military commissions over civilians during the Civil War, international disputes as an aftermath of the Alaskan Purchase, and the sensitive intersection between the right to personal privacy and a free press. Here, briefly, are stories of men history knows as Presidents performing as appellate lawyers and oral advocates before the nation's highest court.     

Defining Debates from the Outside Looking In: How Presidents Affect the Decisions of the House Rules Committee

In this study I demonstrate how presidents influence the decisions of the House Rules Committee. I show that, since the late 1980s, this rise in presidential influence has not been at the expense, but rather at the behest, of Speakers intent on instilling greater partisan order over the House. Speakers direct the Rules Committee to protect through restrictive rules those bills expressly supported by co-partisan presidents. Moreover, they do the same for bills opposed by presidents from the competing party. Statistical analysis of rules granted to almost 1,800 bills between 1977 and 2004 shows that these exogenous partisan factors perform more robustly than prevailing committee-based spatial models in the explanation of Rules Committee decisions in the postreform era. I conclude that scholars must continue to develop and refine formal and statistical models that explain the role and influence of partisanship not just within institutions, but also across them.     

The Wrong King: Apocalypse and Transformation (or Not) in the White House

Abstract

Jonathan Z. Smith has argued that apocalyptic discourse grew out of a political desire to remove the "wrong" king from the throne. Later, though, the same discourse was used to prevent a "wrong" king from taking the throne. Thus apocalyptic discourse can either motivate or resist transformative change. In US political history it has served both purposes. This article focuses on the trend in presidential discourse, especially in foreign policy, since Franklin D. Roosevelt to use apocalyptic language to resist transformation. The electorate's desire to prevent substantive change was the determining factor in the presidential election of 2008. In Barack Obama's first year in office, though he seemed to promote transformation, his dominant message was a reassuring one: The threat of fundamental change would continue to be contained both at home and around the world. No "wrong" rulers would be allowed to disturb the security of America.     

Oral History and the Gerald R. Ford White House: The Specter of Watergate

For the last sixty years, presidential libraries have providedand preserved critical source materials essential for the studyof the history of presidents of the United States. Oral historiesat those libraries have become an increasingly important partof their key archival collections, with one or two major exceptions.This article analyzes and compares official oral history collectionsat the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library with those of othertwentieth century presidents and seeks to explain why the oralhistories currently available for research there were so limiteduntil Mr. Ford's death in 2006. The reasons for this are anintriguing blend of developed White House policy, benign neglect,the role of tape recorders in bringing Ford to the Oval Office,and the continuing influence of the ghost of the Watergate scandaleven well beyond the years Gerald R. Ford occupied the nation'shighest political office.     

Contrasting Models of White House Staff Organization: The Eisenhower,Ford, and Carter Experiences

Analysts of the presidency agree that White House staffs may be organized along one of three lines: a competitive model, a hierarchical model, or a collegial model. This article details the interaction patterns of the Eisenhower, Ford, and Carter senior White House staffs in an empirical test of the basic assumptions of these models of staff organization. These three administrations represent very different conceptual approaches to the problem of staff interaction. The results of the analysis of private and group meeting access by the senior staff with the President clearly indicate that our models do not capture the full range of staff interaction and that other factors need to be given more serious consideration in our conceptualizations of the operation of the White House.