Memorandum For President Trump : Negotiating with Capitol Hill

Dear Mr. President:

Pursuant to your request, I have considered the questions you posed about your influence on the Congress during the passage of the legislation and your possible options if the bill is passed. As you have the power granted by the US Constitution, you can exercise it only within limits defined by the US Constitution. Even though there is the obvious divide between the executive branch of power, which you head, and the legislative branch of power which basically belongs to Congress but you also have the authority to initiate and implement laws upon the consent of the Congress. However, you may have problems if the Congress is trying to pass the law that contradicts to your vision and policies that you support. To determine succinctly, when your influence on the Congress is the greatest, it is important to dwell upon each of the tree major steps in the course of the legislation passage in the congress, including the committee action, the floor action, and the conference action.

The first step is the committee action which is the stage when the project of the law is created and introduced to the committee for the discussion. The committee studies the project and takes a decision whether to proceed with the legislative act or not. In such a way, the legislators take the decision on the law and shape the law to continue with it further proceedings in the Congress. At this stage, the committee weighs carefully the project of the law and prepares the legislation to existing legal norms and regulations. Therefore, the law is worked out and prepared for the further debate in the Congress.

At this point, the President does not have much impact on the Congress, unless the committee has your proponents in the committee. If the committee has a large number of your proponents, then you have a chance to tackle the project of the law at the early stage of its development and avoid the further action and possible introduction of the law. On the other hand, if the committee is not under your party’s control, then you have little chances to stop the further proceeding of the law and its implementation.

The next stage of the law passage is the floor action. In fact, this stage is intermediary and the US President has definitely certain impact on the Congress at this stage. In fact, this stage is the stage of the introduction of the law into each of the Houses of the Congress, debate and voting for or against the law (Irons, 1999). In this respect, the support of the President by the Congress is pivotal because, if the President has the majority of supporters in the Congress than the law may be suppressed easily since the pro-President majority will vote against the law and the problem will be resolved.

However, the current situation is different because you do not have much support in the Congress, where Democrats hold the majority of seats. Nevertheless, you still have an option to influence the Congress at this stage by consolidating your supporters in both Houses of Congress. The consolidated position of Republicans and negative publicity of the proposed law may urge some of the Democrats to vote against the law as well and there is a chance to discharge the law project, if the Congress votes against it. At the moment, such a result will be difficult but possible to achieve. This will require much efforts to persuade all Republicans in the Congress to vote against the law and turn some Democrats against it as well by the close work with media and public opinion.

At the conference stage, there are also options to influence but they seem to be vague enough because representatives of both Houses of the committee to eliminate differences in the law the Houses supported. The President may influence it only if there are the majority of Republicans in the committee, which is unlikely to be the case now because Democrats hold control over the Congress.

Therefore, among the three stages the law passes before its final implementation, you, as the President of the US, have the greatest impact on the Congress at the floor stage because you may consolidate Republicans and focus on shaping the public opinion against the law to force some of the Democrats to vote against it. The second most significant impact could be at the committee action, if the President had the majority of supporters in the committee and that would be definitely the best and easiest way to prevent the implementation of the undesirable law.

Nevertheless, in response to your second question, I would not recommend you to give up, if the Congress votes for the law. Even if the Congresses passes the law you still have the right to veto the law that will return the law back to the Congress. You will provide you justification for the veto and your recommendations on possible amendments to the law, while the Congress should vote one more time but to over-ride the veto the Congress should have two-thirds of the law supporters that is very unlikely to be the case, even though the Democrats hold the majority of seats in the Congress. Otherwise, you may just sign and, thus, introduce the law as the US President.

References:

Irons, P. (1999). A People’s History of the Supreme Court New York: Penguin.

The Constitution of the United States of America. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.prenhall.com/schmalleger/constitution_frame.html

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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