[jkn]

we saw this throughout the Obama tenure as well, more executive orders...

Number of executive orders per president, per year in office[1]:

  Theodore Roosevelt    144.7
  William Howard Taft   181.0
  Woodrow Wilson        225.4
  Warren G. Harding     216.9
  Calvin Coolidge       215.2
  Herbert Hoover        242.0
  Franklin D. Roosevelt 307.8
  Harry S. Truman       116.7
  Dwight D. Eisenhower  60.5
  John F. Kennedy       75.4
  Lyndon B. Johnson     62.9
  Richard Nixon         62.3
  Gerald Ford           69.1
  Jimmy Carter          80.0
  Ronald Reagan         47.6
  George H. W. Bush     41.5
  Bill Clinton          45.5
  George W. Bush        36.4
  Barack Obama          34.6

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_...

[jayess]

I think that if you looked at the scope of executive orders over time it would be instructive. Teddy Roosevelt executive orders were simple and limited.[1] Modern executive orders have very wide ranging consequences (such as allowing departments to share electronic surveillance without a warrant).

[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Theodore_Roosevelt/Exe...

Examples include, "Authorizing Appointment of Translator in Bureau of Insular Affairs Without Examination," "Authorizing Reinstatement of Charles B. Terry as Clerk in Post Office Department Without Examination," "Amending Civil Service Rules to Except Commissioners of National Military Parks from Examination," etc.

[throwaway729]

> I think that if you looked at the scope of executive orders over time it would be instructive

Indeed, but instructive in an opposite direction IMO.

The sum of Obama's executive orders pale in comparison to the other Roosevelt's singular Executive Order 9066, for example. And that was hardly the only controversial FDR order.

Vietnam was really the first time that a war-time president didn't suspend the civil liberties of a crap-load of Americans.

[jayess]

Sure, but we've also been in a perpetual "state of emergency" since 1979: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/22/presi...

[bpodgursky]

The raw numbers are not really useful. There are a lot of EOs which do not push the bounds of presidential authority (awarding medals, ordering flags to half-mast, etc). They are not comparable to EOs which, for example, order the government to not enforce immigration law, or use torture.

[1_2__3]

Right, so we're just arbitrarily moving the goalposts now that the data doesn't back the claim. Got it.

[jMyles]

Not arbitrarily, but with good reason.

It sometimes makes sense to move the goalposts when they no longer work as a mechanism for measuring the metrics of the sport in question.

In this case, the total number of executive orders doesn't speak to the degree to which executive power is used to do things other than execute.

[killjoywashere]

> but with good reason.

No, a hypothesis was asserted, and quickly disproven by data. Without stronger data, the rest of these responses are called "backpedaling", no matter how positive your language might sound.

[jMyles]

Yeah, the naked assertion of "more executive orders" is plainly false by the numbers. But, looking at GP's point more charitably, does that invalidate the spirit of the comment? I think it's clear that it does not. Instead, obviously we must consider the overall force of executive action in creating or changing policy, in order to evaluate whether the contents of this argument are supported by data.

And, FWIW, it's likely that the comment doesn't consider the absurd lengths to which executive power were pushed at various times in the first century of the republic, not only to create policy but also to eviscerate the decisions of the judicial branch (obviously "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it" comes to mind).

This is a rich and complex topics; moving the goalposts away from a discussion of the number of signed executive orders is quite sensible IMO.

[killjoywashere]

but the next step would be to cite a survey of the content of those orders, not make a one-sentence claim.

[WillyOnWheels]

You have a very cynical view of analysis of executive orders!

I think it's totally fine to classify EOs in one bucket for half mast flag memorials and EOs like Nixon's establishment of the EPA in another bucket.

[brazzledazzle]

The content of the orders are probably just as important as the number. If not more so. But it's hard to measure the relevant stats in an objective way that satisfies both sides.

[a_conservative]

Obama took unilateral action with Presidential Memoranda instead of Executive Orders.

"Like executive orders, presidential memoranda don't require action by Congress. They have the same force of law as executive orders and often have consequences just as far-reaching. And some of the most significant actions of the Obama presidency have come not by executive order but by presidential memoranda."

[0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/16/obama...

[notadoc]

Is this some kind of fact based comment?

[pizzetta]

Some of those numbers seem to be affected by significant world events (world wars, economic depressions). I wonder if filtering out some of the EOs specific to those kinds of things might smooth things out a bit?

[dTal]

  Donald J. Trump       113

(extrapolated from 23 EOs in 74 days, as of this writing.)

[fosco]

more details on EO's per president

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php