Memorandum

To: Honorable President

From: Mohammad Ashraful Haque Date: 8/24/12 Re: How to Persuade Congress.

Abstract: Successful presidents of the past demonstrated high level of leadership in influencing Congress, the bureaucracy and the public. They enhanced their power by using their personal skills to gain political resources and take full advantage of their political opportunities. To persuade the Ccongress and the bureaucracy, it is important to set the agenda through clearly stating the your vision and presenting selected but consistent policies. Effective leadership can sell those policies through carefully planning the transition period and building coalitions.

The Constitution provides for a weak presidency since it confers little power while bestowing immense responsibility upon the president's shoulder. The task becomes even more formidable if he has to work under a divided government. In this memo, we will explain to you the critical aspects of the presidential leadership and suggest strategies to persuade Congress and the bureaucracy. Leadership, Not Power: The Key Success Factor Power comes with formal positions. The President's power consists of the constitutional, statutory and delegated power1. According to Section 1 and 2 of Article II, the president is the Commander in Chief, has the executive power and could grant pardon to offenses. He has to share his power to appoint, make treaties and declare war with Congress. Although the Constitution does not specify the executive responsibilities beyond faithfully executing laws (Section 3 of Article II ), the office of the president has evolved as the center of the political system. If you desire to remain at the center of the policy process within this lethargic checks and
1

Olson, W. J. and Woll A., Executive Orders and National Emergencies: How Presidents Have Come to Run the by Usurping Legislative Power, Cato Policy Analysis Paper No. 358, (1999).

Country

balances system, you have to secure cooperation from Congress and loyalty from the bureaucracy through effective persuasion, clever bargaining and wise compromise. You can rarely count on the positional power, but have to provide leadership by gaining informal power from the political environment using your personal skills2. Political Environment and Personal Skills: Main Ingredients of Presidential Leadership The political environment provides opportunities and resources for presidential leadership. The immediate economic and political issues, the level of public expectation and the political opposition define your opportunities. The positional power and the level of your popularity, the unity and strength of your party in Congress, and your relationship with the media will be your resources to work with those opportunities. Your personal skills such as interpersonal and communication ability will determine how much informal power you could generate from the resources and what opportunities you could successfully achievetake advantage of.3 In order to maximize resources and opportunities, great presidents of the past:
conveyed their visions and political agendas clearly, and invigorated and sustained their

those agendas through building public support and political coalitions;

knew their self-strengths and weaknesses, capitalized on their strengths and hired

competent political advisors to compensate for weaknesses;

showed political courage to by takinge risks for to bringing visionary changes; and followed a flexible leadership approach to cope with the their situations. 4

Most importantly, you have to score some early successes for and establishing control over the agenda through carefully planning the transition and honeymoon period. Transition and Honeymoon Period: The Building Block of Success Interestingly, you are most likely to enjoy the highest popular support and the biggest leverage on with Congress and the bureaucracy during the transition and honeymoon period.5 Through Wwatching your activities during the transition period, especially how you select advisors and the chief of staff, and identify policy priorities, your treatment by Congress and the bureaucracy will be determined how they will treat you. Most of the successful presidents fully exploited the transition period by:
choosing a limited agenda and continuously sustaining the momentum. You should place

the most important policies during the first year and put all your resources and skills to make them successful; and
placing the right people in the right positions.

How to Persuade: The Essence of Presidential Lleadership You have to propagate a clear vision, offer consistent and credible policies and programs to realize the your vision, and be able to sell those policies em to the public and Congress6. Positive media campaigns of your agenda will be of immense help.7 You need a strategic game plan to build political coalition for consensus, cooperation, and compromise on major policy issues. It is important for you to nurture a strong ties with the legislators of your party and to ensure their support. Setting up a strong legislative liaison office will help you to work closely with the

legislators- from your party and the opposition8. To persuade the bureaucracy, you should clearly state your policy priorities and spend time with key officials to listen to their arguments and strike a compromise. One option is to appoint some loyal, competent and senior bureaucrats in key positions to establish control over the whole system9. Recommendations Persuasion being the key to legislative success under a divided government, you should be flexible in your management style.10 You can use regulatory review to balance between the bureau and the public interests. This way, you could be able to increase the public support and simultaneously get control over the administrative agencies.11 To ensure that your regulatory reforms are implemented, appoint some senior, competent and loyal bureaucrats to key positions. They will work as the lynchpin between you and the agencies. By clearly communicating your policy priorities to key officials and listening to their viewpoints, you would be able to create the right incentive for them in implementing your policies. Please keep in mind that administrative agencies are sensitive to their budget allocation. You should establish full control over the Office of Management and Budget and use budget allocation as the performance control strategy.12 The Same flexible approach is expected when dealing with Congress. Great presidents like FDR got had success with their uncompromising approach since they did not have to face a polarized

Congress as you have to. Be prepared for clever bargaining and wise compromise. Triangulation can be a good bargaining strategy if the oppositions policy does not directly contradict your priority policies and you can secure their support for your policies in response. Bipartisan policy making though is ideal, you could hardly expect such opportunity in a divided Congress. You can wisely use the presidential veto in exchange for support to your priority policies. Do not overuse 'executive order' to avoid Congress and unilaterally formulate policies. This will jeopardize your long term relationship with Congress.13 Coalition building is critical to legislative success. Do whatever you can to earn the full support of your party congressmen, but avoid picturing yourself as extremely partisan. Identify moderate congressmen in the opposition and use your legislative office to build a good relation with them. You can invite them in for the White Houses programs. Conclusion A successful president rarely depends on his positional power, but demonstrates his leadership to influence critical actors of a divided government. Developing clear vision and consistent policies, and selling them to the public and Congress are important for effective persuasion. Flexibility in leadership style makes it easy to reasonably modify policy goals in exchange for the support of the opposition and building coalition in Congress and the bureaucracy. Ellens comments Lots of grammatical errors, but I think many of the issues are being a non-native speaker However, Youre a strong writer, but I felt that the advice was a little too simplistic and didnt give enough supporting evidence and explanation. You need to try to state your ideas clearly and back them up with why. Mohammad, This paper was not as strong as the first one, but it is still a pretty good paper.

The overall structure, organization and analysis of the readings were very good. There are two areas where you can improve the paper:
a) do a bit more editing to avoid the many typos b) make sure to come up with stronger recommendations and explain the reasons for your

recommendations. In general, you had the right ideas, but they needed more development. The grade is a B+. In general, you have done very well in this class and I am sure your next assignments will be even better. It is very nice to have you in the class so we can compare the US with Bangladesh and the students can learn a bit about your country. Best Silvia