Bill Clinton was more chief legislative mechanic than chief executive in his first two years as president, He defined himself almost exclusively through his bruising battles on Capitol Hill, constantly scuffling for last-minute votes to carry his budgets and measures like NAFTA and the crime bill. Clinton will still engage Congress – on welfare reform, a minimum-wage hike and the defense of his cherished national service program. But as the Mexican bail-out suggests, he is looking for a different way to govern, flexing what executive muscle the office provides. The White House is preparing a range of initiatives designed to depict Clinton as resolute and decisive, an architect of the national resolve rising above the shrill debates in Congress. At the top of the agenda are a national campaign against teen pregnancy and a hands-on effort to help end the baseball strike. “We won’t be lashed to Congress like Ahab to Moby Dick,” says one senior adviser.
Historically, Clinton is on well-trod ground. Many presidents have skirted Congress and produced signature achievements (chart). Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory. John Kennedy established the Peace Corps; Richard Nixon went to China. Clinton has previously made use of the executive-action playbook: in his first 100 days he issued orders eliminating federal jobs and restoring some abortion rights.
Now he faces serious obstacles in fashioning a workable nonlegislative agenda. Presidential success outside Congress has often come through foreign policy, not a Clinton strong suit. His personal history may also make it difficult for him to summon the moral authority necessary to lead by the power of his rhetoric. Ghosts from the past keep undermining him, just as he aspire s to a higher level of leadership. This week, a new biography offers fresh details about Clinton’s alleged extramarital affairs and his attempt to conceal his draft history (page 32). The White House tried to pass it off as old hat late last week. “I’m not sure there’s anything that’s particularly newsworthy,” said press secretary Mike McCurry.
The administration is instead trying to focus on the possibilities for life-after-majority in Congress. In a series of meetings after the November election disaster, aides discussed the need for Clinton to find his “China.” While he was in Asia for an economic summit that month, aides prepared a memo of “nonlegislative proposals.”
Several of the initiatives underway involve straightforward executive action. First up is the baseball strike. Clinton designated confidant Bruce Lindsey and Labor Secretary Robert Reich to enforce a deadline this week for reaching a settlement. If federal mediator William Usery is unable to coax a deal, Clinton may recommend binding arbitration or push Congress to reconsider the game’s antitrust exemption.
The model for the teen-pregnancy counteroffensive is the successful Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a public-private enterprise that seeks free ad space and television time for spots discouraging drug use. Former David Gergen aide Jodi Greenstone is charged with selling the idea to potential corporate sponsors. Clinton’s new nominee for surgeon general, Tennessee physician Henry Foster, will be a key player in that effort – if he survives what could be rough confirmation hearings over abortions he performed in his gynecology practice. To affirm Clinton’s crimefighting bona tides, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Justice Department this week will tile an amicus brief defending New Jersey’s sexual-predator law from a challenge in federal court. Last year’s crime bill encourages states to adopt such statutes, which require police to notify neighbors when a sexual offender moves into a community.
Beyond executive action, Clinton plans to make more aggressive use of the bully pulpit. As Congress descends into the partisan turmoil of the appropriations process, Clinton will seize opportunities to rise reflectively above the fray. He struck that tone at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, where he decried the communications revolution that “gives words not only the power to lift up and liberate but the power to divide and destroy as never before.” He’ll return to the anti-Hollywood rhetoric he tried last year, attacking the industry for glorifying violence. The administration hopes to persuade theater chains to run an anti-gun-violence trailer targeted to teens. The White House recently hired a firm to produce storyboards for the spot.
Of course, Clinton can’t completely bypass Congress. But he’ll try tactics to dilute the power of leaders on both sides of the aisle. On welfare reform, for example, the White House is courting the nation’s governors, building an independent base of influence to help press its case in Congress. The administration will also take a different tack on political reform. In 1998-94, Clinton vetted his campaign-finance legislation with senior Democrats, dooming it to oblivion. This week, he’ll reintroduee a reform package with a minimum of collaboration.
In many respects, Clinton got lucky with the peso deal. He had the means to pay for his own financial package, and a congressional leadership eager to pass the buck on an issue that was a political loser at home. But going it alone brings risks as well. Should the peso destabilize again, it is Clinton who will have to answer questions. Should the White House get blamed for prolonging the baseball dispute, Clinton’s batting average will take a dip.
But the president has little choice. That couldn’t have been clearer last week when he met with a dozen senior House Democrats in the Cabinet Room. A chorus of pagers went off, signaling a floor vote. No one stirred. “What’s the difference?” asked Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer. “We lose by 140 or 180 votes. Mr. President, there aren’t a lot of close votes up there anymore.” The question is whether Bill Clinton can use his office to find strength where once there were numbers.
They are often thwarted by congress and blocked by the bureaucracy. Still, U.S. presidents have found creative ways to get things done.
FDR expanded the presidency in unprecedented ways. In 1933 he went around Congress, buying gold at above-market value to inflate prices and therefore get more cash to Depresession-hit farmers.
Confronting a defiant Arkansas over integration in Little Rock in 1957, Ike sent in federal troops. While Congress dithered over desegregation, this lent presidential authority to the civil-fights cause.
In 1962, U.S. Steel backed out of a deal not to raise prices. He had no legal authority to invoke, but a furious JFK publicly painted the steel barons as evil profiteers. It worked: the company backed down.
Between 1969 and 1973 Nixon refused to spend $15 billion in federal money, freezing more than 100 programs against Congress’s will. In 1974 Congress restricted the presidential power to impound funds.
In 1981 Reagan fired the air-traffic controllers who struck despite a law forbidding federal workers from walking out. The public cheered: Reagan had busted a union and showed the country who was boss.
From 1989 to 1992, Bush delighted conservatives as Quayle’s “Competitiveness Council” delayed or loosened federal rules deemed anti-business. One particular target: the Clean Air Act.
