Title: The Executive Branch and the Constitution legal definition of The Executive Branch and the Constitution
Headings: Executive Branch
Executive Branch
Executive Branch
The Executive Branch and the Constitution
Divisions of the Executive Branch
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Content: These programs resulted in a much larger and more complex federal bureaucracy that was difficult to manage, leading Roosevelt to create the Committee on Administrative Management, popularly known as the Brownlow Committee. Headed by Louis Brownlow, the task of the Brownlow Committee was to study the organization of the executive branch and to suggest solutions to the problem of administrative management. The Brownlow report, completed in 1937, made several recommendations, including the creation of the Executive Office of the President, which would bring together agencies concerned with executive branch activities, such as budgeting, efficiency, personnel, and planning. Though Congress rejected other proposals contained in the Brownlow report, it approved the creation of the EOP, by passing the Reorganization Act in April 1939 (3 U.S.C.A. § 106, 31 U.S.C.A. §§ 701,1101). As a result, key managerial agencies, such as the Bureau of the Budget and the National Resources Planning Board, were moved into the EOP; the benefit of this move was that crucial management functions could be performed by staff working directly under the president, completing the routine tasks necessary for the government to function. Though the specific elements of the EOP have changed since Roosevelt's presidency, the Brownlow report laid the foundations for the basic administrative structure that allows presidents to manage the numerous and diverse parts of the executive branch. The Cabinet and Executive Departments The cabinet consists of the president, the vice president, the heads of the 15 executive departments, and any other government officials the president wishes to include, such as the head of the OMB or the head of the NSC. In theory, cabinet members serve as expert advisers to the president, but in practice they more often operate as advocates for their departments and are seldom involved in actual presidential decision making. The Constitution makes no specific reference to a president's cabinet;