Chapter Focus
Section 1 Constitutional Powers
Section 2 Investigations and
Oversight
Section 3 Congress and the
President
Chapter Assessment
II. Legislative Powers (pages 158–163)
D. Congress has important powers in foreign
policy and national defense, such as the
power to approve treaties, to declare war,
and to create and maintain an army and
a navy.
E. Congress has power over naturalization of
citizens and the admission of new states to
the Union
III. Nonlegislative Powers (pages 163–165)
A. If no presidential candidate has a majority of
the electoral votes, the House of
Representatives chooses the president from
the top three candidates
B. Congress has the power to settle problems
arising from the death of candidates or the
president’s incapacity or resignation.
C. Congress has the power to remove officials
of the executive or judicial branches from
office by the process of impeachment.
III. Nonlegislative Powers (pages 163–165)
D. The Senate has the power to approve
officials appointed by the president.
E. The Senate ratifies treaties between the
United States and other nations.
Checking for Understanding
5. Describe the process by which Congress may
remove a member of the executive or judicial
branch from office.
By majority vote the House impeaches, or
charges an official with wrongdoing. The Senate
can convict by a two-thirds majority.
I. The Power to Investigate (pages 167–169)
A. Standing committees or select committees
of Congress investigate the conduct and
ethics of government officials and members
of Congress.
B. Investigations have a variety of
consequences that range from proposing new
legislation to removing officials from office.
C. Congressional investigations collect
evidence, subpoena witnesses, and grant
witnesses immunity, but they are not trials.
I. The Power to Investigate (pages 167–169)
The Fifth Amendment protects individuals
from being forced to testify against
themselves. Yet Congress may grant
witnesses immunity, in order to obtain
testimony. Do you agree or disagree with this
practice by Congress? Explain.
Answers will vary. For discussion of this
issue see text pages 168–169.
The Watergate scandal in 1972-74 marked
the end of a long, bitter struggle between
Congress and the president. By then,
relations between a Republican president and
a Democratic-controlled Congress were
seriously strained. President Nixon had
refused to spend funds appropriated by
Congress to carry out its programs. But when
Congress passed bills to end this practice,
Nixon vetoed them. Angry members of
Congress charged that Nixon had established
an “imperial presidency.”
I. Cooperation and Conflict (pages 172–174)
E. Members of Congress often serve in
government longer than any president and
may resist the president’s timetable for
enacting laws.
II. The Struggle for Power (pages 174–176)
A. Throughout the nation’s history, the balance
of power has shifted back and forth between
Congress and the president.
.
II. The Struggle for Power (pages 174–176)
G. History of Presidential
Vetoes.
Checking for Understanding
2. Define national budget, impoundment.
The national budget is the yearly financial
plan for the national government.
.
Checking for Understanding
5. How does the political party system contribute to
conflict between the president and Congress?
When different parties control Congress and the
White House, party politics adds to congressional
opposition to the president’s proposals.
Checks and Balances One struggle for
power that exists between the president
and Congress is the president’s right to
send armed forces overseas. When has
the president committed military forces
overseas without a declaration of war?
Create a time line indicating the year and
the reason for these military involvements.
Recalling Facts
3. List five nonlegislative powers of Congress.
Congress chooses the president and vice
president if no candidate has a majority in the
Electoral College; charges federal officials
suspected of misconduct in office and removes
them if guilty; and proposes amendments to the
Constitution. Furthermore, the Senate confirms
presidential appointments of federal officials
and ratifies treaties.
If Congress never issued a declaration of
war, how did the United States wind up
sending troops to fight in Vietnam?
When North Vietnamese patrol boats
allegedly attacked American destroyers in
the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964,
Congress passed a resolution that gave
President Lyndon Johnson power to “take
all necessary measures” to protect
American forces. By the following spring,
Johnson was sending American soldiers to
Vietnam in ever-increasing numbers.
2) Possible fear of a pocket veto
1) The House voted to
override one veto,
but the bill stalled in
the Senate.
3) One possibility is by
making vetoed bills part of
other bills, which later
become law
More About Minimum Wage Laws The first
minimum wage laws in the United States were
made by state governments and applied only to
women and minors. In 1923 the Supreme Court
declared such laws unconstitutional. The Court also
invalidated the federal government’s first attempt to
establish minimum wage scales for men and
women in 1933. Not until 1938, with the enactment
of the Fair Labor Standards Act, was a national
minimum wage fixed—25¢ per hour for workers in
interstate commerce. As the text points out, even
today there are many exceptions to the minimum
wage standards.
Jeannette Rankin
Jeannette Rankin (R-Montana), the first woman
elected to Congress, was a pacifist who once
commented, “You can no more win a war than you
can win an earthquake.” She voted against the
United States’s entry into World War I and was the
only member of Congress to vote against the
United States’s entry into World War II.