Executive Orders Abuse Power? The Best Known

¶ … Executive Orders Abuse Power?

The best known directives consist of executive orders and presidential proclamations, but there are many other documents that have a similar functional and effects. Reduced to their basic core, presidential directives are merely written, rather than oral, instructions or declarations that are handed down by the President. Authority for these directives must come from either the Constitution or statutory delegations. Yet the President's authority to issue directives goes beyond express language in the Constitution (Gaziano, 2001).

The President's authority to issue executive orders is limited by the extent of his powers and by other power given to Congress. If the President's power is derived from a constitutional grant of power, Congress remains free to reverse or adjust the fundamental authority. Congress also has some leeway in defining the procedures the President must carry out in the exercise of that power, even though there are some constitutional restrictions to Congress's power to oversee the President's enforcement or decision-making measures. Since the constitutional separation of powers both supports and limits a President's power to issue administrative directives, it is natural that some friction exists in the exercise of that power (Gaziano, 2001). There are those on one side of the argument that say that the aggressive use of presidential directives is necessary while there are others that say it is an abuse of power.

Executive orders are the main means by which the President makes executive statements concerning the operation and management of the Executive branch of the Federal Government. The President's power to hand down executive orders comes from powers spelled out, implied and inferred by the Constitution, as well as from authority delegated to the President by Federal statute (Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, 2001).

In the overpowering majority of cases, executive orders and proclamations are a suitable public way of directing the actions of numerous Federal agencies and other mechanisms of the Executive branch. While thousands of executive orders have been handed down over the last two centuries, Federal courts have been exceptionally unwilling to dispute executive authority. When executive orders are handed down without a constitutional or lawful basis, they involve the Separation of Powers Doctrine that underpins divided government. The Separation of Powers Doctrine apportions accountability to each branch to vigorously exercise and enthusiastically defend its constitutional privileges (Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, 2001).

Supporters of a confident executive have challenged a President should be accorded broad respect in order to issue executive orders, even in the absence of clear lawful authority. They have argued the President is exclusively capable of devising national policy and that executive orders are an effective way of circumventing the narrow institutional stubbornness of Congress (Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, 2001).

Critics have claimed that presidents have abused executive orders, by utilizing them to make laws without Congressional endorsement, and of moving existing laws away from their original directives. Big policy changes with wide ranging effects have been achieved by way of executive order, including the incorporation of the armed forces under Harry Truman and the desegregation of public schools under Dwight D. Eisenhower. "One extreme example of an executive order is Executive Order 9066, where Franklin D. Roosevelt delegated military authority to remove any or all people (used to target specifically Japanese-Americans and German-Americans) in a military zone. The authority delegated to General John L. DeWitt subsequently paved the way for all Japanese-Americans to be sent to internment camps for the duration of World War II" (Executive order (United States), 2012).

Presidents, on the other hand, frequently cite executive order as the only way to explain laws passed through Congress that required indistinguishable wording to please all parties concerned in their creation. "In this regard, when the political process of adopting congressional legislation would put off U.S. ratification of or accession to treaties of importance, Presidents have issue decision-making orders calling upon federal agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Department of Energy (DOE), to as an alternative issue administrative regulations. Presidents, in addition, may use an executive order or a presidential memorandum to make sure that federal courts abide by international tribunal rulings understanding the provisions of an international treaty (Executive order (United States), 2012).

Gaziano's conclusion that "aggressive use" of presidential directives is necessary for a President to "project strength as the leader of the free world does not really hold water. Presidents' aggressive use of presidential directives in order to put policies into place that they could not otherwise have approved is not a necessary thing that has to be done. A lot of times this is done so that President's can get their own political agenda into the spotlight and not necessarily for any other reasons.