Unit 2: The Three Branches
AP AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
PRESIDENTIAL POWERS DEFINED
Theories of Presidential Power
 Whig Theory – President beholden to Congress
 Stewardship Theory – President beholden to the people
 History of Presidential power
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 Pre-Civil
War
 Reconstruction
 Progressivism through the 1920s
 FDR – The Depression and World War
 The Modern Presidency
PRESIDENTIAL POWERS DEFINED
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SCOTUS Decision on Presidential Power
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Removal Power – Myers v. United States (1926) and Humphrey’s Executor v.
United States (1936)
Executive Privilege – United States v. Nixon (1974)
Executive Immunity – Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) and Clinton v. Jones (1997)
Legislative Veto – Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha (1983)
Line-item Veto – Clinton v. City of New York (1998)
Sole Organ of Foreign Relations – U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Exports (1936) and
Zivotofsky v. Clinton (2015)
NLRB v. Noel Canning (2014) – recess appointments
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PRESIDENTIAL POWERS DEFINED
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War Time Powers
Civil War – The Prize Cases (1863) and Ex Parte Milligan (1866)
 WWII – Ex Parte Quirin (1942) and Korematsu v. United States (1944)
 Cold War – Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer (1952) and United
States v. Reynolds (1953)
 War on Terror – Rasul v. Bush (2002), Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004),
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) and Boumediene v. Bush (2008)
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