It ’s a stiff image of the United States governing at work : Thepresident , frailty president , and the secretaries of each and every major federal section seat around the same mahogany table , forging solutions to the most critical matter facing the nation and the world . This is the Cabinet , the corporate fundament of executive top executive and the locomotive of the American president ’s policy agenda .
TheU.S. Constitutionestablishes a authorities composed of three branches : the Executive , Legislative and Judicial . According to Article II of the Constitution , the power of the Executive Branch is vested in the president , who is also the principal of state and the Commander - in - honcho of the armed forces . While not mentioned by name , the Cabinet is ground in Section 2 of Article II , which submit that the president " … may require the legal opinion , in piece of writing , of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments , upon any guinea pig relating to the Duties of their respective Offices … "
apart from this abbreviated mention of " executive departments , " the Constitution does n’t elaborate on section names or single-valued function . In one of his first Acts of the Apostles as United States President , George Washington ask Congress to approve the creation of the Departments of Foreign Affairs ( later rename State ) , Treasury and War ( later named Defense ) [ root : WhiteHouseMuseum.gov ] . Today , there are 15 executive departments . The most recent addition was the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 . Each of these executive departments is responsible for administer and enforce Union law .
The Cabinet does n’t have the authority to compose or implement laws or policy . It ’s just an consultative circuit card to the prexy composed of handpicked older officials . The Cabinet admit the heads of all 15 executive departments — all called escritoire , with the elision of the Attorney General — plus the frailty president and seven " cabinet - level " officials let in the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Chief of Staff .
Here is a full lean of the departments , agency and office represented in the Cabinet :
locker - level appointees :
Members of the Cabinet are appointed by the president and must be confirm by the Senate by a simple majority ( 51 votes ) . The Senate has rejected fewer than two percent of Cabinet candidate since 1789 [ seed : Senate.gov ] . The list of Cabinet postal service above also represents the official order of succession to the presidential term from frailty president through the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security .
Now let ’s look at the chronicle of the Cabinet in America .
History of the Cabinet
The instauration of the American Cabinet began during the Revolutionary period [ Source : Hinsdale ] . The first " constitution " of the United States was theArticles of Confederation , sign in 1881 . This document bound the 13 colony together as a loosely held alliance with no real centralised authority . In that same year , the Continental Congress approve the universe of four department crucial to the function of the new government in wartime : the Department of Foreign Affairs , the Department of Finance , the Department of War and the Department of Marine . Under the Articles of Confederation , the heads of each section were choose by ( and answered to ) Congress , not the executive [ Source : Hinsdale ] .
It was n’t until the Constitution was ratify in 1789 and George Washington took position that the Cabinet took on its current form and map . As one of his first acts in agency , Washington convinced Congress to create the Department of State , Department of Treasury and the Department of War . For his first Cabinet members and section heads , Washington select his most truehearted and competent adviser : Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State , Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury , and Henry Knox – Washington ’s Major - General during the war – as Secretary of War [ source : Senate.gov ] . Washington met oft with his closest advisor and established the precedent for a presidential Cabinet that continues today .
Although the Senate plays a critical role in approving nominees to the Cabinet , it has traditionally value the president ’s choice of his own advisers . Very few candidate have been pass up by the Senate , and almost none during periods when both thepresidencyand Congress were in the hands of the same political party . In the 20th hundred , only two Cabinet nominees were rejected by the Senate ( Lewis Strauss in 1959 and John Tower in 1989 ) , both during catamenia of divided politics [ source : Senate.gov ] .
Next we ’ll look at one of the most authoritative functions of the Cabinet : Cabinet meetings .
Cabinet Meetings
The members of thepresident ’s Cabinet comprise his nigh and most bank consultant on critical foreign and domestic policy matters . While each member is in charge of the day - to - day business of his or her executive section , the president come across regularly with the Cabinet to discourse ongoing strategy to settle everything from extraneous wars to fiscal crisis . President Obamaconvened a full Cabinet meeting at least every two calendar month , but emergency Cabinet meetings are also held , such as the Cabinet meeting phone by President George W. Bush on Sept. 12 , 2001 [ sources : WhiteHouse.gov;WhiteHouseMuseum.gov ] .
The agendum for each Cabinet merging is developed by the Cabinet Secretary and his or her staff . The Cabinet Secretary is the basal liaison between the White House and the 15 executive department [ root : WhiteHouse.gov ] . In preparation for each meeting , the Cabinet Secretary meets with the heads of each executive section and their staffs to identify the issues that merit the attention of the full Cabinet .
Cabinet encounter are held in the Cabinet Room , a small rectangular conference elbow room on the first level of theWhite Houseoverlooking the Rose Garden [ source : WhiteHouseMuseum.gov ] . The Cabinet Room has been in its current location since 1934 , when it moved from a 2nd base space now called the Treaty Room . Before 1869 , the current location of the Cabinet Room was home to the White House stables [ source : WhiteHouseMuseum.gov ] . Insert manure trick here .
The president , vice president and Cabinet members sit around an oval mahogany league board in leather - bound chairs , each assume a bronze crustal plate with the name of the department and the date the functionary took spot . The order of the chair stand for to the date in which each Cabinet position was make , with theSecretary of Stateseated to the chairwoman ’s right field and the escritoire of defense to his left [ source : WhiteHouse.gov ] . custom dictates that when a phallus of the Cabinet pass on his or her post , staff fellow member buy the chair from the government as a part gift .
Cabinet meeting are private , closed - door sessions . They are also the only clock time in which the president , frailty president and every other executive military officer in the line of presidential succession are discover in the same room . Even during the State of the Union address , one member of the Cabinet is asked to watch from a second location to protect against a ruinous accident or attack [ germ : WhiteHouse.gov ] . After the Cabinet coming together is concluded , extremity of the crush are invited in to take photos and to record the president ’s input on the work that was fulfil that day .
For lots more information about the U.S. government activity and executive authority , explore the related connectedness on the next page .
It must be a heady experience , sit around a conference table with the United States President and all of his most influential political advisers . Outside of Nixon ’s surreptitious tape recording recordings , we do n’t have transcripts of what move on during Cabinet group meeting . Do they go around in a circle , courteously necessitate turns to partake in their opinion ? Or is it a costless - for - all ? Do pettishness flare up up , voices rise and revilement fell ? We ’ll in all likelihood never know . A funny detail fromthis videoon WhiteHouse.gov – the Cabinet members must surrender their Blackberrys during the meeting . They write their names on Post - it notice , cleave the notes to the back of their phone and drop them in a wicker basket before the enter the Cabinet Room . Easily the most entertaining image from the video is that basket and the Post - it on the top of the pile interpret " HOLDER " with two underline . I guess the Attorney General wants his headphone back .
