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Abstract
How different was President Trump from previous presidents? This study first analyzes the routine activity of the president including signing legislation into law, veto action, presidential signing statements, and executive orders. The analysis shows that the activity by President Trump was not significantly different from his predecessor, President Obama. This study then turns to analysis of atypical behavior of President Trump and reveals that he deviated from the norms and practices of previous presidents. In particular, President Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, use of the White House for the election, the appointment of “acting” cabinet members, the abuse of the power of amnesty, and the January 6, 2021 uprising at the U.S. Congress are discussed. At the conclusion of this article, the impact of Trump’s presidency will be examined.
Notes
1 Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, Ideology and Congress revised edition, (Transaction Publisher, 2007).
2 Frances E. Lee, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign (The University of Chicago Press, 2016).
3 Charles M. Cameron, Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power.
(Cambridge University Press, 2000).
4 Christopher S. Kelley, “Contextualizing the Signing Statement.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2007).
5 Joel Sievert and Ian Ostrander. “Constraining Presidential Ambition: Controversy and the Decline of Signing Statements.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4 (2017).
6 Kenneth R. Mayer, With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (Princeton University Press, 2001).
7 William G. Howell, Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action. (Princeton University Press, 2003).
8 Kenneth S. Lowande, “After the Orders: Presidential Memoranda and Unilateral Action.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 4 (2014).
9 Stephen Skowronek, “Mission Accomplished.” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2009).
10 Kelly Phillips Erb, “What’s A Blind Trust, Anyway, And Why Won’t It Work For President-Elect Trump?” Forbes, January 12, 2017.
11 18 U.S. Code § 208.
12 David Montgomery, “The definitive list of the 20 presidential norms Trump broke – and how Joe Biden can restore them,” The Washington Post, November 10, 2020.
13 Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig and Mike McIntire, “Trump’s Taxes Show Chronic Losses and Years of Income Tax Avoidance,” The New York Times, September 27, 2020.
14 Montgomery, “The definitive list of the 20 presidential norms Trump broke – and how Joe Biden can restore them.”
15 Felicia Sonmez, “Trump says he’s ‘in no hurry’ to replace acting Cabinet members,” The Washington Post, January 6, 2019.
16 Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (Lawfare Institute, 2020).
17 Aaron Blake, “What Trump said before his supporters stormed the Capitol, annotated,” The Washington Post, January 11, 2021.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Umekawa Takeshi
Umekawa Takeshi is professor in the Faculty of Law, Tokyo Metropolitan University. Previous posts include Fox International Fellow and Post Graduate Fellow, Center for Comparative Research, Yale University; Associate Professor, School of Law and Politics, Faculty of Urban Liberal Arts, Tokyo Metropolitan University. He earned his B.A. from the Department of Law and Politics, University of Tokyo, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo. Research specialties: American politics, American political history. Selected publications: The Erosion of Checks and Balances in the United States; Presidential Signing Statements and Congressional Oversight, University of Tokyo Press, (in Japanese), 2015; Presidential Power and Limitations, Nihonhyoronsha (in Japanese), co-edited with Kubo Fumiaki and Agawa Naoyuki, 2018.