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Presidency and Legislation: The Growth of Central Clearance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Richard E. Neustadt
Affiliation:
Columbia University

Extract

Ten months after President Eisenhower's inaugural, an article in Fortune extolled a presidential aide in terms which would have seemed familiar ten months before; the picture of his role in Eisenhower's entourage might easily have been drawn in President Truman's time. The subject of this piece was Roger W. Jones, an Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Budget and chief of its Office of Legislative Reference. In Fortune's terms, here was a confidential, if “non-political,” member of the White House circle performing tasks of great importance to the President, trusted, respected, and relied upon by all of his associates. As an analysis of governmental functions and relationships, this testimonial was scarcely definitive, but its mere publication testifies to the continuation of the Budget Bureau's so-called legislative clearance operations, handily surviving the Great Transition of 1953.

What are these clearance operations? Essentially they amount to central coordination and review of stands taken by the various federal agencies at three successive stages of the legislative process.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1954

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References

1 Hammill, Katherine, “This is a Bureaucrat,” Fortune, Vol. 48, pp. 156 ff. (Nov., 1953)Google Scholar.

2 Agency proposals for executive orders, proclamations, and certain other formal presidential actions are also coordinated and cleared through the Bureau of the Budget, as are feasibility reports on proposed public works requiring congressional action.

3 Source: Office of Legislative Reference, Bureau of the Budget. In addition, there were 889 “direct referrals” from congressional sources asking Budget for views on pending bills.

4 Budget Circular A-19, Revised, dated October 25, 1948 sets forth coordination and clearance procedures and requirements concerning proposed and pending bills. Budget Circular A-9, Revised, issued at the same time, deals with enrolled enactments. Both circulars codified and brought up to date earlier usage and regulations.

5 Gross, Bertram M., The Legislative Struggle (New York, 1953), p. 169Google Scholar.

6 This article deals with legislative coordination and review centering in the Bureau of the Budget. At a later date the author hopes to deal with a related process, planning the President's own legislative program: a process but newly and incompletely institutionalized, centering more nearly in the White House than the Budget Bureau, yet also exhibiting a high degree of continuity from Truman's time to Eisenhower's.

7 As an integral part of the budget reform, the House of Representatives changed its rules in 1920, at the second session of the 66th Congress, to reduce from eight to one the number of committees authorized to deal with appropriations. The Senate followed suit two years later, at the second session of the 67th Congress.

8 Letter from Chairman Madden of the House Appropriations Committee to Budget Director Dawes, November 17, 1921. Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 1. The measures in question were Senate Joint Resolutions of very limited significance, affecting War Department obligating authority. Madden's concern was clearly not with these specifics, but with their procedural implications.

9 In contrast with the asserted presidential veto over agency proposals volunteered to Congress, this circular and its successors have carefully refrained from claiming any right to stop or alter agency responses to congressional requests for views on pending bills. Formally speaking, the only requirement has been that the President's position, as expressed by Budget, be stated in an agency report along with the agency's own views. Furthermore, by long custom now acknowledged in current regulations, an agency's response to congressional requests for “technical drafting service” is exempt from clearance so long as it carries no official endorsement. Thus has the Budget tried to duck the charge of “interference” with congressional access to agency opinion or expertise. In practice, this means non-interference with agency calculation of the risks involved, if any, in holding to views which do not square with those of the Executive Office.

10 Dawes obtained Harding's approval in advance, sending him the proposed circular on December 3, 1921, with the notation that it “needs no argument,” being intended “simply to insure that all estimates and requests for appropriations [are] presented in the manner provided in the Budget and Accounting Act.” Dawes may have said less than he believed, but there is no hint of this either in the official files or in his published memoirs, The First Year of the Budget (New York, 1923)Google Scholar.

11 This modification was suggested by Harding himself at a conference with Dawes in January, 1922. A formal amendment to Circular 49 was actually drafted along these lines but was never issued; an oral clarification in Cabinet meeting appears to have been substituted, supplemented by explicit waivers of jurisdiction in Budget Bureau correspondence with particular departments. Budget Bureau, central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 1. For detailed discussion of this and other aspects of the subject, see Neustadt, Richard E., “Presidential Clearance of Legislation,” unpub. diss. (Harvard, 1950), pp. 28 ffGoogle Scholar.

12 Herbert Lord, an army careerist and wartime associate of Dawes, served as Budget Director from 1922 to 1929. It was his custom, in the search for economy, to inspect his subordinates' desk drawers after office hours, confiscating extra pencils, paper clips, and pads of paper. Note that the total full-time Bureau staff numbered less than thirty in 1924. Ten years later the total was still under forty.

13 Addresses of The President of the United States and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at the Seventh Regular Meeting of the Business Organization of the Government (Washington, G.P.O., 1924), p. 6Google Scholar. See also the corresponding releases for the ninth meeting (1925), and the eleventh meeting (1926). The Business Organization of the Government, including all department heads and bureau chiefs, met semi-annually from 1922 to 1929 for purposes of presidential exhortation on, and departmental oaths of fealty to, economy in government. Coolidge's addresses on these occasions are classics of their kind. A Dawes innovation, becoming more ritualistic with each passing year, these meetings were abruptly terminated by Herbert Hoover when he assumed the presidency after years of attendance as Secretary of Commerce.

14 For a detailed review of these efforts, see Hansen, Donald A., “Legislative Clearance by the Bureau of the Budget,” unpub. staff monograph (Budget Bureau, 1940), pp. 1019Google Scholar. For Lord's correspondence with departments, see Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 1.

15 Bureau of the Budget, Third Annual Report of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to the President of the United States (Washington, G.P.O., 1926), p. 28Google Scholar. Within his limite frame of reference, Lord's claim for compliance appears reasonably accurate. Apparently he was afforded the opportunity to see in advance those legislative reports and proposals that he and the President really wanted. See Hansen, op. cit., pp. 19 ff.

16 Hansen, op. cit., especially pp. 17–20. See also Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 1 for a variety of typical clearance letters in this period.

17 Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 1, Budget Director's Memorandum to the files, May 17, 1929. Hoover actually did review and initial virtually every Budget Bureau clearance letter issued during his term of office, an interesting commentary on the presidency of twenty-five years ago. The documentation behind such letters was relatively haphazard in those days, frequently lacking in summaries of the issues, or of agency positions, or even of the bills themselves. The President must often have had to plow through the legislative language to reach an understanding of the subject at hand.

18 Budget Circular 273, issued December 20, 1929. The Budget Bureau shortly found it expedient to issue supplementary instructions requiring that to qualify for the exemption, reports on public bills must be definitely unfavorable, not merely non-committal. This amplifying note was contained in a “Memorandum to the Heads of all Departments and Establishments,” issued April 10, 1930, “by direction of the President.” In Coolidge's regime, these types of reports had received almost automatic clearance from the Budget Bureau, usually without referral to the President.

19 This theme appears strongly in Hoover's last three Budget messages. For example: “ … we cannot afford to embark on any new or enlarged ventures …. There will be before the Congress many legislative matters involving additions to our estimated expenditures …. The plea of unemployment will be advanced … but Congress [should] give full due to our financial outlook …. In the absence of further legislation … we can close [the] year with a balanced budget.” Message of the President of the United States Transmitting the Budget for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1932 (Washington, G.P.O., 1930), p. XIXGoogle Scholar.

20 For sidelights on the “newness” of the incoming Cabinet see Perkins, Frances, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York, 1946), pp. 228–30Google Scholar. See also Ickes, Harold, The First Thousand Days (New York, 1953Google Scholar).

21 Roosevelt's really extraordinary grasp of the tempo and politics of departmental administration comes clear in the meetings of the National Emergency Council, an enlarged Cabinet group which met under his chairmanship from 1933 to 1936. The verbatim transcripts of these meetings, available in the National Archives, preserve intact his “lectures” to his department heads on such subjects as how to manage bureau chiefs, congressional committees, and the press.

22 Notably Roosevelt's first Budget Director, Lewis Douglas, and his first Under-secretary of the Treasury, Dean Acheson. Both returned to government with the coming of World War II.

23 The Bureau's reminder was contained in a memorandum from the Budget Director's career assistant to the heads of all major agencies, January 22, 1934. It was a gently phrased affair and while most of the agencies replied in kind, the Bureau's records indicate that they were slow to take their duties very seriously. See Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 1. Budget Director Douglas seems to have had no part in this proceeding, nor much interest in the outcome. Two weeks later, when queried by a Cabinet member, he expressed himself as unfamiliar with the “old orders,” and uncertain of their scope. See National Emergency Council, Proceedings of the Fourth Meeting (February 6, 1934), pp. 21 ffGoogle Scholar.

24 National Emergency Council, Proceedings of the Nineteenth Meeting (December 11, 1934), p. 7Google Scholar.

26 National Emergency Council, Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Meeting (April 23, 1935), p. 8Google Scholar. Bell, at the time a senior career official in the Treasury Department, had taken the Budget Directorship on an acting basis after Douglas' departure. He held the job in addition to his duties as a special assistant to Secretary Morgenthau and this “temporary” arrangement was continued for nearly five years, until Harold Smith relieved him in 1939.

27 This new order was discussed by the Emergency Council before issuance and the President then went to great lengths to emphasize his personal approval. See National Emergency Council, Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth meeting (December 17, 1935), pp. 1423Google Scholar.

28 In 1937, when a revision of Circular 336 was under discussion, F. J. Bailey—soon to become the first Assistant Budget Director for Legislative Reference—wrote an undated memorandum pointing out that “there is no authority whatever in the Budget and Accounting Act for our procedure with respect to reports on legislation. And I would not try to make believe that there is. The authority we have over [these] reports comes from Executive authority and not from any Act of Congress.“ Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 2.

29 National Emergency Council, Proceedings of the Twenty-second Meeting (January 22, 1935), p. 2Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., p. 3.

31 National Emergency Council, Proceeding of the Twenty-eighth Meeting (December 17, 1935), p. 17Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., pp. 19–21.

33 Witte, Edwin E., “The Preparation of Prosposed Legislative Measures by Administrative Departments,” Studies on Administrative Management in the Government of the United States for the President's Committee on Administrative Management (Washington: G.P.O., 1937), p. 56Google Scholar.

34 Hansen, , “Legislative Clearance by the Bureau of the Budget” (cited in note 14), p. 34Google Scholar.

35 Testimony by Daniel W. Bell, Acting Director of the Budget, before the Treasury Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, Hearings on the Treasury Department Appropriation Bill for 1940, 76th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, G.P.O., 1939), p. 936Google Scholar.

36 Young, Roland, This is Congress (New York, 1943), p. 59Google Scholar.

37 See President's Committee on Administrative Management, Report with Special Studies (Washington, G.P.O., 1937), pp. 1521Google Scholar.

38 Ibid. The Report recommended essentially that the Budget Bureau become the President's chief staff agent for “administrative management,” enlarged, revitalized, and formally made part of the President's own office. In passing, the report endorsed a staff proposal that NEC clearance functions devolve upon the Bureau, with Circular 336 simplified accordingly and then generally enforced. In so urging, the Committee simply followed the logic of events, which fitted neatly enough into its major theme: building up the Budget Bureau.

39 See Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Legislation No. 2, especially entries between March and May, 1937.

40 Circular 344—virtually identical in its terms with 336, save for deletion of NEC's participation—was drafted in May, 1937, but for various reasons, mechanical and other, was not released to the agencies until December 17, 1937. Circular 344 was later renumbered A-19.

41 In 1938, the President obtained from Congress a supplemental appropriation enabling the Budget Bureau to start tooling up for the new or redefined tasks envisaged in the Brownlow Report. For details on the ensuing reorganization and restaffing see Bell's testimony, Hearings (cited in note 35), pp. 936–55. This preceded by a year the Bureau's formal transfer from the Treasury to the Executive Office of the President (Reorganization Plan I and Executive Order 8,248 of 1939). Before Bell's reorganization, clearance work had been handled almost entirely by the Bureau's estimates examiners as an adjunct of their other duties. The new Division of Coordination was conceived, both in the Brownlow studies and by its Bureau sponsors, as a small, full-time unit to guide and coordinate, but not supplant, the contribution of all other Bureau staff to legislative analysis and review. This has remained the concept, though since World War II not just the Bureau but the whole growing Executive Office has become the field from which staff contributions have been sought. By 1939, the Coordination Division's professional staff for legislation numbered five; in the fifteen years since, the comparable figure has never risen above nine. The unit's changes in title have had no substantive purpose or effect.

42 Source of Budget figures: Office of Legislative Reference, Bureau of the Budget. For NEC figures see Witte, op. cit., p. 53.

43 To illustrate: In the 1939 session some 5,000 public bills were introduced in the two Houses of Congress; of these, 452 were passed by both Houses and enrolled that year. But only an item-by-item comparison—which no one has ever made—would show the relationship between the 2,400-odd bills cleared and the 5,000 introduced, or between the 438 drafts cleared and the 452 bills passed. To complicate the issue further, the figures on drafts cleared and on bills enrolled represent separate subjects in virtually all cases; not so the figures on bills introduced, where substantial duplications within or between the two Houses may run as high as forty per cent in the average first session. This is an estimate; firm data are not available.

44 For examples see Hansen, op cit., pp. 81–84.

45 There were other hazards too: “… one enrolled bill was lost and once when we called up one of the new [New Deal] agencies and asked where the bill was, they said they had put it in the files.” Testimony of Frederick J. Bailey, Assistant Director for Legislative Reference, Bureau of the Budget, before the House Committee on the Civil Service, 78th Congress, 1st sess. Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. 16., Part 2 (Washington, G.P.O., 1943), p. 361Google Scholar. The writer is indebted to Bailey; to the late Maurice Latta, former White House Executive Clerk, whose tenure in subordinate capacities began with McKinley; to William J. Hopkins, Latta's successor as Executive Clerk; and to James H. Rowe, Jr., a Roosevelt Administrative Assistant, for data on the evolution of enrolled bill procedure. Information here provided is drawn from their recollections, from Roosevelt's enrolled bill files (now at Hyde Park), and from contemporary Budget Bureau records.

46 “This is a splendid contribution,” wrote Rudolph Forster, then White House Executive Clerk, “we could never have got half as far before.” Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Enrolled Bilk No. 1, undated memorandum from Forster to F. J. Bailey.

47 In order to build up back-ground files for use on enrollments, private bills were brought back under clearance at the pending stage by Budget Circular 390, June 1, 1942.

48 National Emergency Council, Proceedings of the Twenty-eighth Meeting (December 17, 1935), p. 17Google Scholar.

49 Budget Bureau central files; 1921–38: Enrolled Bills No. 1, undated memorandum from Rudolph Forster to F. J. Bailey.

50 See note 45.

51 All Roosevelt aides consulted by the writer have been emphatically agreed on bis conscious adherence to these views and his consistent application of them.

52 Review of Budget Bureau submissions on enrolled bills first became a distinct White House assignment in 1939, shortly after the Bureau's formal assumption of responsibility for their handling. Initially, this assignment went to James H. Rowe, Jr., one of the original Administrative Asaistants to the President appointed under the Reorganization Act of 1939. Rowe had left the White House by the time Samuel I. Rosenman was appointed Special Counsel in 1943; this work then gravitated naturally to Rosenman, who had performed a similar service for F.D.R. in Albany, a decade earlier. Rosenman was succeeded as Special Counsel by Clark M. Clifford in 1946; Clifford by Charles S. Murphy in 1950; Murphy by Bernard Shanley, the present incumbent, who took office with the Eisenhower Administration.

53 The Office of War Mobilization (OWM) was established by Executive Order 9347, May 27, 1943. It was transformed into a statutory Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR) by the War Mobilization and Reconversion Act of 1944. For an admirable summary of OWM-OWMR history, see Somers, Herman M., Presidential Agency (Cambridge, Mass., 1950), pp. 47108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 A comment dating from the early spring of 1946, made by the then OWMR Director to a member of his staff and relayed by the latter to the writer.

55 The Employment Act of 1946 was approved February 20, 1946. The Council did not begin to function until the following September.

56 For a survey of Truman's domestic legislative program and the character of congressional response, see Neustadt, Richard E., “Congress and the Fair Deal: A Legislative Balance Sheet,” in the forthcoming Vol. 5 of Public Policy, eds. Friedrich, Carl J. and Galbraith, J. Kenneth (Cambridge, Mass.)Google Scholar.

57 OWMR was terminated by presidential action through Executive Order 9809 of December 17, 1946. Some of the factors leading to its demise are discussed in Somers, op. cit., pp. 100–1. Steelman's principal lieutenants had planned to move the core of the whole organization to the White House with him, but they reckoned without his sensitivity to Cabinet and congressional resentment over late-coming, subordinate “empires” in the President's own office, especially after the 1946 election.

58 Quite apart from the so-called “Nourse-Keyserling dispute,” Budget, Treasury, and OWMR each had hoped and planned to assume the staff responsibilities ultimately conferred on the Council. Only the mutual jealousy of these three agencies stalemated executive opposition to the Council's creation. Their grievances did not yield, all at once, to the accomplished fact; and an uncertain performance on the first Economic Report did not enhance the Council's standing with its sister agencies, their heirs and assigns.

59 The 1947 veto of Taft-Hartley, for example, was preceded by a special White House appraisal undertaken by the Special Counsel at the President's behest, with the fulltime assistance of three Budget staff members whom Webb turned loose entirely, requiring from them neither consultation nor report.

60 A residual reflection of the then dependence on the Budget, which Webb so strongly aided and abetted in 1947–48, is found in the fact that in 1953 fully a third of the outgoing Truman assistants had come to the White House staff from the career service in the Budget Bureau.

61 F. J. Bailey retired as Assistant Director of the Budget for Legislative Reference after the first session of the 80th Congress in 1947. His place was taken by Elmer B. Staats; in 1949, Staats was succeeded by Roger W. Jones, the present incumbent.

62 Testimony of Roger W. Jones before the House Select Committee on Lobbying Activities, 81st Congress, 2nd sess. Hearings Pursuant to H. Res. 298, Part 10 (Washington, G.P.O., 1950)Google Scholar. Note that the current version of Circular A-19 is printed with Jones' testimony.

63 After 1949, NSRB, ODM, and DMS staff, and occasionally NSC staff, were also drawn into or given leadership of such Executive Office teams.

64 Of course, not all proposals were prepared in this way. For example, the so-called “Brannan Plan” was first set forth informally in the shape of “suggestions for study” put to congressional committees in testimony by the then Secretary of Agriculture. Truman's health insurance proposals were never translated into Administration-approved specifics; nor did the Administration ever commit itself to the details of bills introduced in Congress. As for revenue measures, their preparation, for the most part, was—and still is—dominated by the Treasury.

65 Currently, the committees which engage most frequently in direct referrals are: Senate Interior, Labor, Public Works, Finance, Banking, Commerce, Civil Service, Government Operations; House Agriculture, Commerce, Merchant Marine, Public Works, Government Operations, Civil Service. Source: Office of Legislative Reference, Bureau of the Budget. Note that the early adherence of the Senate Labor Committee reflects Senator Taft's own view of the need for a formal channel between President and committees on current measures.

66 Also in 1949, the Senate Majority Leader arranged to have the Budget report to him the number of each bill cleared and the nature of the clearance given, week by week. These data were then tabulated by his staff for ready reference to Administration stands on the general run of pending bills. So routinized a transmittal of so much information proved of limited utility. After 1950, the practice was curtailed.

67 A classic example is provided by Budget reports to the Senate Labor Committee on S. 614, the Hospital Construction Act Amendments of 1949. For details see Budget Bureau central files; Enacted Legislation, 81st Congress, Hospital Construction, R6–15/48.3.

68 See, for example, Truman's message to Congress, July 13, 1951, announcing the signature of S. 984, a bill to aid recruitment of Mexican migrant workers, of which the President remarked: “I could not have given my approval had I not been assured … that supplementary [measures] would receive prompt attention.” Truman then recommended a three-point supplementing program, produced by a staff team after the bill's passage.

69 See note 4.

70 The Office of Defense Mobilization was established by Executive Order 10193 on December 15, 1950 within the Executive Office of the President, to exercise direction and control over all aspects of the post-Korean mobilization program. ODM received permanent status through Reorganization Plan 2 of 1953, absorbing the war mobilization planning functions of the National Security Resources Board under the National Security Act of 1947.

71 In June, 1950, Averell Harriman was appointed Special Assistant to the President to coordinate various overseas affairs. Under the Mutual Security Act of 1951, his post was transformed into an Office of the Director for Mutual Security (DMS), within the Executive Office of the President. DMS was abolished by Reorganization Plan 7 of 1953 and its functions transferred to the Foreign Operations Administration.

72 Lawton had been a senior Bureau official since 1935, number-three man under Webb, number-two man under Webb's successor, Frank Pace, Jr. He is serving presently as a member of the Civil Service Commission.

73 It is an interesting sidelight on the longevity of Truman's concern for a smooth transition that a number of the preparatory actions Lawton took, both before and after the 1952 election, corresponded with arrangements planned by Webb on a “contingent” basis during the summer of 1948.

74 Dodge was not precisely a newcomer to government, having organized War Department renegotiation activities in World War II and having carried out significant overseas assignments for the occupation authorities of both Germany and Japan. His attitude toward his new role was very healthy for the institution he would head, fairly free of the suspicion and uncertainty which plagued so many Eisenhower appointees and their career subordinates. Dodge resigned as Budget Director, April 15, 1954, and was succeeded by his deputy, Rowland Hughes. For information on this and other aspects of the 1953 transition, the writer is indebted to the many officials throughout the Executive Office who have answered his inquiries with candor and good will.

75 Under Eisenhower, Sherman Adams, the Assistant to the President, has a formal, though not always operative, role in the coordination and direction of all White House staff undertakings. Wilton B. Persons, now Adams' deputy, had major responsibility for congressional liaison during Eisenhower's first year and is still heavily involved in legislative affairs. Bernard Shanley, Special Counsel to the President, acquired during 1953 a good share of his predecessors' tasks in policy development, especially on the legislative side, resuming, among other things, the Counsel's old role as regular channel between Budget and President on enrolled enactments and other clearance actions.

76 The legislative clearance system was not, of course, the only means employed. The National Security Council Staff—especially the old Senior Staff reconstituted as the Planning Board—contributed importantly in some major areas. Certain of the presidential and agency study groups, among the many operating in 1953, helped also to build effective links between the new regime and its inherited experts; notably in the government organization, psychological warfare, social security, and housing fields.

77 Note that Eisenhower's inaugural marked the first change of party in the executive under the so-called “Lame Duck” Amendment; the new President was inaugurated only ten weeks after his election; the new Congress was in regular session two weeks before Inauguration Day.

78 It has been the custom during 1954 for the White House to disavow Administration “sponsorship” of measures introduced by committee chairmen or other senior members after congressional receipt of presidential recommendations. But in the great majority of cases, as almost any New York Times account will show, these bills actually represent departmental drafts, conveyed with the Administration's blessing to competent authorities in Congress. This is the same route previously taken by most Truman “must” measures, which seldom traveled straight from White House to Congress. In all such cases, denials of Administration sponsorship are merely exercises in semantics, sometimes accepted at face value by the press, rarely, if ever, by congressmen, though giving all concerned a useful “out” for future reference.

79 This is not to say that the President subscribes to a Whig theory of the veto power. Staff aides contend otherwise and the evidence is not yet in.

80 For examples, see Somers, op. cit., pp. 213 ff., Long, Norton, “Popular Support for Economic Programs,” this Review. Vol. 42, pp. 326–36 (April, 1948)Google Scholar; Maass, Arthur, “In Accord with the Program of the President?” in Public Policy, eds. Friedrich, Carl J. and Galbraith, J. Kenneth (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), Vol. 4, pp. 7793Google Scholar.

81 Truman, David B., The Governmental Process (New York, 1951), pp. 437–38Google Scholar.

82 Another service merits passing mention: favorable clearance gives a sponsor opportunities to wrap his project in the “presidential” mantle; unfavorable clearance lets him rise to defend Congress and the public interest—and his bill—against executive blundering or “interference.” Each tactic has its uses in the legislative struggle; each may bring members and their measures within reach of the publicity inherent in the presidential office. For a recent illustration, see the press treatment of sponsors' complaints against an apparently adverse Budget report on several House bills depriving Alger Hiss of retirement benefits. New York Times, June 23–25, 1954.

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