President Donald Trump returned to the White House ready to immediately reshape the government using the quickest tool at his disposal: the executive order.
On his first day, among other things, he wanted to increase domestic energy production and stop diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government.
It is common practice for a new president to sign a flurry of executive orders. They allow a president to exercise power without congressional intervention, but there are also limits to what the orders can accomplish.
An introduction to how presidential power works and its often fleeting effects:
What are Executive Orders?
Essentially, these are signed statements about how the president wants to run the federal government. These can be instructions to federal authorities or requests for reports.
Many orders can be harmless, such as granting federal employees vacation the day after Christmas. You can also set important guidelines. For example, former President Joe Biden signed an executive order creating a structure to set regulations on artificial intelligence.
Newly elected US President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders on his first day in office. CBC’s Washington correspondent Alex Panetta tells you what you need to know.
But executive orders—and their policy counterparts, the proclamation and the policy memorandum—are also used by presidents to pursue goals that they cannot get through Congress.
New presidents can—and often do—issue orders to overturn the orders of their predecessors. On his first day, Trump revoked 78 orders and measures signed by Biden. Trump’s resignations included an executive order from Biden that canceled some of the executive orders signed by Trump during his first term.
As the American Bar Association notes, the orders do not require congressional approval and cannot be directly repealed by the legislature. Still, Congress could block compliance with an order by cutting funding or creating other hurdles.
How common are executive orders?
There have been several thousand executive orders throughout U.S. history, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. George Washington signed eight executive orders, while Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed 3,721.
During his first term, Trump, a Republican, signed 220.
Biden, a Democrat, had signed 160 as of Dec. 20.
Executive orders are often about political messages
Trump signed numerous executive orders tied to his campaign promises.
These included a temporary federal hiring freeze, an order requiring federal employees to return to their offices to work and a review of federal investigations that Trump said targeted his supporters. He has also promised an executive order to give more time to sell TikTok.
Trump had asked Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey to issue an executive order stopping the development of offshore wind turbines to generate electricity. But it’s entirely possible that Trump could also issue many planned executive orders over time.
Many of Trump’s measures are likely to face resistance from Democrats.
And in several major cases, the orders are largely memorandums of understanding based on Trump’s campaign promises.
There are limits to the power of executive orders
Both Congress and the courts may be able to block executive orders.
For example, in 1992, Congress revoked an executive order from then-President George HW Bush to establish a human fetal tissue bank for scientific research by passing a measure stating that the order “shall have no legal effect.” Congress can also deny funding to agencies and impede enforcement of an order.
There are also legal challenges arguing that a president has exceeded his legal authority.
When President Harry Truman attempted to seize steel mills during the Korean War, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that he lacked the authority to seize private property without authorization from Congress.
