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Series:   Elements in American Politics

Congressional Expectations of Presidential Self-Restraint

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 April 2025

Jack B. Greenberg  and
John A. Dearborn
Jack B. Greenberg
Affiliation:
Yale University
John A. Dearborn
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University

Summary

This Element explores how Congress has designed laws reliant on an assumption of presidential self-restraint, an expectation that presidents would respect statutory goals by declining to use their formal powers in ways that were legally permissible but contrary to stated congressional intent. Examining several laws addressing political appointments since the 1970s – statutes involving the FBI director, Office of Personnel Management director, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, director of national intelligence, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, inspectors general, Senior Executive Service, vacancies, Social Security Administration commissioner, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director – the authors demonstrate lawmakers' reliance on presidential self-restraint in statutory design and identify a variety of institutional tools used to signal those expectations. Furthermore, the authors identify a developmental dilemma: the combined rise of polarization, presidentialism, and constitutional formalism threatens to leave Congress more dependent on presidential self-restraint, even as that norm's reliability is increasingly questionable.
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Keywords

Congresspresidencyself-restraintappointmentsseparation of powers
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in American Politics
Online ISBN: 9781009568968
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 22 May 2025

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