Presidential Powers: Exploring the Special Powers of the President

1. Friday November 4th, 2016 • Learning Target; • I can explain what the presidents do that the rest of us can’t (Special Powers of the President) • Agenda • Finish Primaries and Caucuses • Electoral College Essay Tournament • Presidential Powers • Chapter 8 work • Things to Remember; • Government in Action • Electoral College Essay Due today!

2. The Road to the White House How does a presidential candidate get on the ballot?

3. Primaries and Caucuses • Purpose: To select a candidate from a party for the presidential election

4. Winning your Party’s Nomination: All States Must Decide Who will run for president? Who will be the Democratic candidate? Who will be the Republican candidate?

5. Being nominated for president by your political party is more difficult than being elected for president. Why? There are more candidates running.

6. The Race for the Republican Nomination in 2016: • Rand Paul • Chris Christie • Mike Huckabee • Carly Fiorina • Jeb Bush • Ben Carson • Marco Rubio • Ted Cruz • Donald Trump • Who would you choose?

7. The Race for the Democratic Nomination in 2012: • Why was there only one? • Who was he? • Because Obama was an incumbent, he was a shoo-in (an easy winner) for the democratic party

8. The Race for the Democrat Nomination in 2016: • Bernie Sanders • Martin O’Malley • Hillary Clinton • Who would you choose?

9. How do the states decide? Either Primaries or Caucuses

10. Caucuses • Delegates are chosen to go to local conventions, then state, then national • In Minnesota, we go to neighborhood meetings (CHS and MHS), then county, district, state, national

11. First Caucus? Historically, Iowa2016: February 1, 2016

12. Primaries • Voters vote for candidates

13. Primaries Open Primary • Open Primary—any qualified voter can vote for either party, but they have to choose one • Closed Primary—only party members can vote; republicans vote for republicans; democrats vote for democrats Closed Primary

14. First Primary? Historically, New HampshireFebruary 9, 2016

15. C G P Grey’s Primaries and Caucuses • Primaries and Caucuses

16. National Conventions • After the primaries and caucuses, each state sends several delegates to choose the nominee for president and vice president at the national convention.

17. Democratic National Convention of 2016 • Philly in July, 2016 • Hillary Clinton’s Acceptance Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnXiy4D_I8g • (Go to 1:25)

18. Republican National Convention of 2016 • Cleveland, OH, July 2016 • Donald Trump’s Acceptance Speech: • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Svt3kfq1c • (Go to about 2:00)

19. Electoral College Essay • Electoral College Notes and Essay 20 POINTS • In preparation for your Electoral College essay, you will read and take notes on the following topic: How are the president and vice-president chosen in the U.S. Focus on what happens on Election Day and thereafter (don’t worry about all the campaigning). Key words to include in your final essay are listed below. Pages 220-224 can help with this. • Majority • Winner Takes All • # of Electoral Votes needed to win • Popular Votes • Electoral College • # of Electoral Votes per state • President • Vice President • # of Electoral Votes total

20. Essay Tournament • You will be reading three papers at a time to determine one official winner!

21. Special Powers of POTUS What can presidents do that the rest of us can’t?

22. Appoint People to Stuff • Federal Judges and Supreme Court Justices • Ambassadors • Cabinet Secretaries • Must have approval from the Senate

23. Make Treaties • Must have 2/3 approval from Senate

24. Executive Orders • An order issued by the president having the force of law • November 20, 2014: President Obama offers temporary legal status to 4 million illegal immigrants, along with an indefinite reprieve from deportation. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUDSeb2zHQ0

25. Gun Control Executive Order • Keep guns out of the wrong hands through background checks • Make our communities safer from gun violence. • Increase mental health treatment and reporting to the background check system. • Shape the future of gun safety technology.

26. Roosevelt- 290 • Hoover- 242 • George Washington- 1 • Obama- 33 (Since October ’14)

27. Reprieve • Postponement of a criminal sentence • Ex) Death Penalty

28. Reprieve—A president may delay the execution of someone on death row

29. Pardon • Forgiveness • Granting a criminal release from punishment

30. Pardon—when Nixon resigned, President Ford granted him a pardon.

31. Obama’s Pardons • • Ronald Lee Foster, of Beaver Falls, Pa., was convicted of mutilating coins in 1963. He had shaved the edges off pennies to fool vending machines into thinking they were dimes. He was pardoned in 2010 at the age of 66. • • David Neil Mercer of Grand Junction, Colo., was convicted in 1997 of violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act by disturbing Indian artifacts in Utah. He now owns an automotive business and was pardoned last year at the age of 56. • • Bobby Gerald Wilson, of Summerton, S.C., was convicted in 1985 of aiding and abetting in the possession and sale of illegal American alligator hides. He was pardoned in 2011 at the age of 61.

32. Pardon—on Clinton’s last day in office, he pardoned 140 people

33. Amnesty • A pardon granted to a group of people

34. Amnesty—President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to all draft evaders of the Vietnam War

35. Should we grant amnesty to all illegal immigrants?

36. Use chapter 8 to answer the following questions • What are the duties of the President? 2. How much does the President earn per year and what other benefits does he receive? 3. Explain the qualifications to be President? Other than the Constitutional requirements, which do you feel is the most important and why? • Constitutional • Experience • Money • Beliefs • Personal Characteristics • Personal Growth 4. Explain how the Vice President’s role has changed over time.