Army (Ret.) is an Infantry and Psychological Operations veteran. As citizens, we must be watchful that the president does not exceed his authority and remember that executive orders may be challenged in the courts. In summary, executive orders are tools that the president uses to carry out the laws created by Congress, not a tool to create new laws or change laws passed by Congress. There are more than enough clowns in Congress already. Of course, we know Congress would never establish clown colleges. If the president determines that insufficient funds or other conditions exist preventing establishing a clown college in every state, he would be obligated to return to Congress and ask for additional funding or a change in the law. What if there was not enough money allocated by Congress to pay for a clown college in each state? What if there are not enough certified clown instructors to staff 50 schools? Would this executive order be justified then? One might argue that there might be extenuating circumstances. This order would contradict what Congress specified in the law. However, if the president issued an executive order saying that groups of states, for instance New England or the Dakotas, be served by one centrally located clown college, this would be an entirely different situation. This would not contradict the law that Congress passed, and the president would be taking care that “the Laws be faithfully executed.” He could determine which states get clown colleges the first year and which the second year. The president could issue an executive order directing that states with the lowest percentage of clown population be given priority in establishing the new colleges. Was this wrong? Definitely.įor the sake of example, let’s say Congress passed a law mandating that a clown college be established in each of the 50 states within two years. Roosevelt issued an executive order stipulating that all Japanese Americans be interned in camps.
This was internal to the executive branch and thoroughly within his constitutional power.Īt the other extreme, in 1942, President Franklin D. President George Washington issued the first executive order in 1789, directing department heads to provide reports about their operations. The Constitution does say that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Article 2, Sec. You will not find the phrase “executive order” in the Constitution. The issue is neither in the use or the number of executive orders but in how they are used. So, what are executive orders, and when is it OK to use them? This “your guy signed more than my guy” argument, which was also invoked when Obama took over from Bush, is also irrelevant. That’s not how this self-government thing works.Īnother press pundit was defending President Biden’s actions by saying that other presidents had signed many more executive orders on their first day. What? If that’s the case, then we don’t need Congress at all. I heard one newsperson say that “His advisors told him he probably wouldn’t get all these things through Congress, so he might as well use executive orders.” President Joe Biden made a show on his first day in office of sitting at his desk and signing 17 executive orders.
0 kommentar(er)
