After signing 22 executive orders in the first two weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump has some worried that the president is too powerful. Infamous George W. Bush appointee John Yoo called Trump’s actions “executive power run amok.” But others note presidents always sign a flurry of executive orders during their first weeks in office–Obama signed nine to start off his presidency, and liberal icon Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an average of 307 executive orders per year. What do you think?
PERSPECTIVES
When George W. Bush appointee John Yoo, author of the infamous “torture memos,” writes an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Executive Power Run Amok” saying how freaked out he is about Trump’s power? Maybe we should all be freaking out too.
Jon Schuppe disagrees, calling Trump’s executive orders “a time-honored power move.” He also argues executive orders are checked by the fact that they can be revoked or rewritten by successors. Constitutional law professor Stephen Griffin agrees that executive orders are a feature, not a bug, and says presidents have used them to throw their weight around for decades.
“The fact is that each administration, beginning at least with Clinton and really since Roosevelt, has opened with a flurry of executive orders by presidents wanting to make their mark to show they’re accomplishing something fast, which is very difficult to do through Congress.”
An attorney for Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation told the U.S. District Court that 100,000 people lost their visas the moment Trump signed the executive order. (The State Department disputes that number–putting it closer to 60,000). Should anyone in the U.S. government wield unchecked power to strip tens of thousands of people of legal status in the U.S. with the stroke of a pen?
Critics see executive orders as an unsettling power grab by the president–but let’s not forget, the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, as was the desegregation of the U.S. military. Sometimes presidents just need to get stuff done, and history often proves executive orders were justified.
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order. The problem isn’t with executive orders, it’s with the executive ordering them.
— Andy Demsky (@Demskyland) February 3, 2017
But then again, the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II (a.k.a. one of the most shameful events in U.S. history) was also an executive order. The head of the executive branch wields a chilling power over millions of people.
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