Presidential Control and Administrative Capacity

<div> Presidential control is the power to direct administrative capacity toward the President’s own policy objectives. Accordingly, presidential power vis-à-vis administrative policymaking has two necessary components: control and capacity. First, the President must have the ability to set the agency’s policymaking agenda and direct the day-to-day activities of its leadership and career employees. Second, the agency needs a well-managed team of policymakers with expertise and experience in both the substantive policy area and the policymaking process. Yet scholars have long assumed—without much empirical testing—that the administrative state has sufficient capacity to implement the President’s agenda. Not so. </div> <div> <br> </div> <div> This Article argues that insufficient capacity prevents Presidents from implementing their policy agendas. This Article’s goal is to encourage scholars, policymakers, and judges to engage more with capacity as a constraint on presidential action. Drawing on a survey of federal executives engaged in rulemaking, over 115 million federal personnel records, and over 5,000 rulemakings from three presidencies, this Article contributes three core findings to our understanding of presidential power. First, new measures of policymaking capacity show wider variation across federal agencies than people often assume. Second, a new survey of federal executives shows that Presidents and their proxies exercise a great degree of control over agencies’ rulemaking agendas. Third and finally, multivariate models demonstrate that, controlling for presidential control and presidential priorities, low-capacity agencies are less likely to complete their rulemakings than high-capacity agencies. Most importantly, Presidents struggle to implement their agendas in low- capacity agencies regardless of whether they have significant control over those agencies. Traditional markers of presidential control prove ineffective in low-capacity agencies, and, therefore, control and capacity are complements—not substitutes. </div> <div> <br> </div> <div> The results have important implications for public administration and existing theories of presidential power. The wide variation in capacity raises questions about whether agencies have the capacity needed to make policy pursuant to congressional delegation. Moreover, strong adherence to unitary executive theory may have the unintended effect of weakening the President’s ability to pursue their preferred policies by eroding administrative capacity. Instead, presidential power requires an appropriate balance of presidential control and administrative capacity. But control and capacity are in tension with one another. As presidential control increases within an agency, the agency may struggle to hire expert and experienced employees. Building a strong and efficacious presidency requires shifting the balance toward effective management, away from efforts to reduce structural insulation within agencies. Entrusting the President with the managerial prerogative requires increased oversight from the courts, Congress, and the public. </div>