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by throwaway729
3370 days ago
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> nothing That's also a failure of checks and balances. Of course the presidency can do all sorts of things without Congress! It's not and was never intended to be a ceremonial position. Or a position bound to the will of congress in all things! Hence "separation of powers", not "devolution of powers to Congress and the judiciary". Indeed, kevin_thibedeau's observation is SPOT ON, and is exactly how things should and were explicitly designed to work! The presidency has certain powers that are typically only exercised during a divided government. This has been true since the very beginning of the union. That shouldn't be surprising at all! It's intrinsic to an effective separation of powers. If the presidency proceeded in identical fashion regardless of who Controlled congress, then that would be a clear indication that the separation of powers has failed. The presidency should do what he thinks he has the authority to do. Congress should pass explicit laws limiting that power if it feels the presidency has become too powerful, using the purse as leverage when necessary. The courts should mediate inevitable conflicts and check the abuses of a unified executive and legislature. That is separation of powers. |
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Not entirely true. Executive orders (and similar powers of the executive), as far as I understand, have significantly evolved since the founding of the US.
The ability to use them is implied rather than explicitly granted by the US Constitution, and use in practice (and what constitutes overreach) has largely been defined through the US Supreme Court.
Side note: this right was not explicitly given to the Supreme Court either in our founding documents and was largely hammered out by sheer force of will by John Marshall in Marbury vs Madison (perhaps one of the greatest cases of all time, replete with some seriously shady last-days-in-office chicanery by John Adams) [1] [2]. I'd highly recommend listening to the podcast episode in the second link.
Based on Wikipedia's numbers [3] (which seem reasonable, given that they weren't called "executive orders" until ~1900 when they were retroactively numbered them back to Lincoln), Theodore Roosevelt could definitely be said to be the first major user.
By my count, the 25 presidents before Teddy Roosevelt signed 1,262 orders. Roosevelt signed 1,081 himself (in two terms).
Notably, if I'm reading the figures right, both of Roosevelt's terms were characterized by large majorities in the Senate and slim but still majorities in the House.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison
[2] http://www.wnyc.org/story/giggly-blue-robot/
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_Stat...