Hi, I'm Ron Elving and welcome to my office hours.
There's been a lot of international tension
lately, so it seems a good time to ask the question,
"Who's in charge of American foreign policy?"
Let's take the current state of affairs with
Russia, for example.
Just recently, the Senate passed a set of
sanctions — some new, some codified for
the first time in actual law — on Russia.
The vote was an overwhelming 97-2, so you
might ask, what difference does it make when
you have that lopsided a vote in such a divided
chamber?
Does that really mean anything?
Well, first of all, it would have to be passed
by the House as well as the Senate; and then
it would have to be signed into law by the
president.
And we're not sure those things are going
to happen at this point.
And if that seems a little unclear, that's
pretty typical when you talk about foreign
policy, Congress and the presidency.
It is a murky relationship, and it is that
way by design.
In fact, years ago, one legal scholar named
Edward Corwin said that the Constitution had
issued "...an invitation to struggle" between
the branches — that the Constitution's authors
did not want to resolve the question of who
ran foreign policy between the president and
Congress, but gave powers to do so to both,
and expected them to work it out.
So, which of these powers went to Congress?
Well, they get the money, they get to appropriate
the money.
They appropriate every dollar that gets spent
by the State Department, or for that matter
the Defense Department or any other agency
that has anything to do with our relations
with other countries.
That's a big authority, that's a big power.
So whatever the president proposes to do in
those areas, whatever he proposes to spend,
the last word belongs to Congress.
The Congress also passes what are called "authorization
bills" that set rules and parameters and policies
for the State Department, and also for the
Defense Department,
and for other agencies as well.
The President chooses the secretary of state
and the secretary of defense
and the ambassadorto the United Nations.
The Senate can say "no," but it rarely does.
Congress also votes on trade deals, such as
NAFTA, and on international relations, such
as the Iran deal on their nuclear program.
But, in practical terms Congress has recently
not sought confrontation on most of these
kinds of arrangements, and the president has
looked for ways to not have to ask Congress
— so, for example, we don't call something
a treaty, we call it something else
and we don't ask Congress to weigh in.
So for the most part, at least in recent years,
Congress has not really accepted the
 "invitation to struggle."
But that could be changing in the Trump years
— at least that's how some people read that
97-2 vote in the Senate, reasserting at least
some of the Senate's
authority in the area of foreign policy.
So, perhaps in the next few years with the
Trump administration, we'll see Congress accepting
that invitation to struggle just a little
bit more.
So, I'm Ron Elving, and thank you for coming
to my office hours.
