Donald Trump has declared he intends to cancel most of the executive orders signed by Joe Biden, his predecessor as president of the United States.
In a post on social media, Trump claimed baselessly that Biden had not signed off on the orders himself, saying that “the radical left lunatics circling Biden around the beautiful Resolute Desk in the Oval Office took the Presidency away from him” by signing his name using an autopen – a signature machine that has commonly been used by US presidents since the device’s invention.
“The Autopen is not allowed to be used if approval is not specifically given by the President of the United States,” Trump said, baselessly alleging that it was operated by other people without Biden’s approval and claiming that “approximately 92%” of all executive orders were therefore invalid.
Being perfectly honest, all EOs should have an expiration date. If it’s important enough to keep going, pass a law by approval of the people (at worst, the legislature). If it’s not, then we shouldn’t have a single person having the ability to make long-term changes to American life.
Executive orders shouldn’t have the ability to make law or ignore laws. The legislative branch passes the laws and the executive branch is supposed to faithfully execute them.
An executive order is meant to lay out how the executive departments should carry out the laws passed by the legislative branch. And if they overstep that by failing to faithfully execute the laws or creating their own laws out of executive orders, the judiciary is supposed to act as a check.
Our constitutional order seems to have completely failed. The legislative branch is in a state of permanent deadlock, except when it comes to tax breaks for the uber wealthy and defense spending. So EOs have expanded in scope and the judiciary has just shrugged and decided that the whole separation of powers and checks and balances thing isn’t worthwhile anymore.
Intentional permanent deadlock. There’s a reason Democrats refuse to get rid of the filibuster.
Ah yes. It’s ALL the Democrats fault, what Donny 2 Inches is doing.
Fuck right off, Freddy!
You may not have noticed, but the Republicans who are presently in charge also didn’t get rid of the filibuster to end the shutdown like Trump asked them to. However, both parties made changes to the filibuster for judicial appointments in last 15 years (Democratic majority in 2013 and Republican majority in 2018).
Yes, because the Democrats folded.
Well that’s a whole other Democratic failure, for sure. But it was about 10 days from Trump publicly calling for ending the filibuster to get the spending bill passed and they didn’t do it. It’s just as useful to them as a minority party as it is to the Democratic party.
Agreed, they’re not supposed to be laws, they’re supposed (as far as I understand it anyways) to essentially be “as the head of the Executive branch, here is how I want my underlings to handle/interpret this particular thing that the Executive branch already has authority over” … it really doesn’t make sense that they’d last any longer than that particular Presidents term(s).
Yup. Remember when target announced they wouldn’t pursue charges for theft under $25? That was essentially the “president” (ceo) telling the “field offices” (stores) not to go after those crimes. It doesn’t change the fact those are still crimes and a store could still go after it against the order.
Even regular laws should have a trial period, and only get confirmed after demonstrating that they have the intended effect.
I like this a lot. Backed by studies of a neutral party