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A* essay response: Evaluate the to which congressional oversight of the president is ineffective (30)
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Evaluate the extent to which congressional oversight of the president is ineffective(30)
Congress’s oversight authority derives from its implied powers in the constitution.
The founding fathers made sure that no branch has supreme power than another
and so oversight is an integral part of the American system of checks and balances.
However, it can be argued that congress is not effective in the oversight of the
executive branch due to partisanship.The effectiveness of oversight merily depends
on the government formed; either a united or divided government and so ruins the
convention of effective oversight.
One method which congress uses to oversight, is voting in congress on proposed
legislation. Congress has the authority to vote against laws supported by the
president. Even though the president sets out legislation, it is Congress that
implements proposed legislation and therefore the executive is heavily dependent
on Congress for legislation to be passed. Though a president comes to office with a
working majority in Congress, he can still face difficulty. For example in 2010 when
Congress was dominated by the Democrats, Obama still faced difficulty in
implementing Obamacare and as a result, a significantly watered-down version
passed. With Congress being more polarised in recent years there has been a lack
of bipartisanship between legislature and executive, which is exactly what the
Founding Fathers wanted, and as a result Congress is effective in scrutinizing the
executive. However, the president still has many powers in his court which suggest
that oversight of the executive is not as effective as it should be. This can be seen
through the example of George W Bush, with a Republican congress, passing the
Patriot Act even though there were many claims of this being unconstitutional.
Furthermore, George W Bush also increased the use of Executive orders that did not
require congressional approval. Highlighting the fact that congress is not effective in
the role of oversight if there is a united government due to partisanship and
presidential power. Therefore, though congress may vote against legislations
supported by the president, this is not very likely especially in a united government
due to the fact that congress support president and the president may increase the
use of executive order, reducing the effective oversight of the president and making
it more ineffective.
Congress also uses congressional committees to oversight the president and the
executive. Congressional committees scrutinise the actions and legislations of the
executive branch. This can be seen as an effective way of oversight due to the fact
that congress can carry out intensive scrutiny and questioning of the executive
branch and make sure they are doing the correct work. For instance, when the
Democrats took over the congress for the final two years of Geaorge W Bush’s
presidency, four very high profile members of the executive branch resigned within
three week of relentless and critical questioning by congressional committees. This
can be seen as highly effective due to the fact that the executive are accountable to
congressional committees and so congressional committees are committed and
responsible in the effective oversight of the president and the executive. However it
can be argued that congress isn't as effective at its oversight role due to the fact that
congress favourtising the party of a president in a united government. For example,
the first five years of his presidency where congress was dominated by republicans ,
we see only 35 investigation hearings held in congress in comparison to his last two
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