I don't think this post really belongs on Hacker News.
Nevertheless, here's my hot take: plotting the number of executive orders doesn't tell us much. Some of those orders are trivial or symbolic, and others have immediate impact on millions of people. Some are illegal and get struck down by courts, and some don't. Some are run-of-the-mill ordinary stuff, and some are extremely unusual. None of that nuance is captured in this chart.
A more interesting (and more difficult) chart would represent the impact of executive orders. For example, today's executive order [0] claims "The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch." If this executive order stands, it would mean that the executive branch of government effectively replaces the judicial branch, rendering the Supreme Court moot. That's a level of power that even FDR never claimed for himself, and I think is more noteworthy than declaring a new national holiday.
"authoritative interpretations of law FOR THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH." Suppose the National Security Agency comes up with a new tactic or operation and they want to know if it's legal. My guess is that previous to this EO, worker bees helped the NSA general counsel make a decision brief for the head of the NSA who then made the final legal/illegal decision. This memo means the AG or POTUS are now the decision makers. That's my reading of the memo anyway.
Okay, but that's not what it says. The president or the AG can certainly provide advice to agencies, for whatever that's worth, but advising someone "Hey I think this new tactic is legal," is quite different from making a legal determination of legality (or interpretation of law), which is up to the courts.
Taken at face value, this executive order is seizing from the courts the power to determine the legality of policy.
This would apply only to the 15 executive departments — the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Attorney General.
Currently those laws (which are technically called “rules”) are interpreted by the agencies themselves, with the reasoning being that the subject matter expertise of those agencies is the most important factor in deciding any dispute relating to any rule. The laws and judicial process works differently when it comes to agencies under the executive branch.
Having an external governing individual is better than self-governance in most systems, so this seems sensible given that those agencies have a history of interpreting rules in ways that are self-interested and clearly not to the spirit of the rules, which likely resulted in this Executive Order.
> Currently those laws (which are technically called “rules”) are interpreted by the agencies themselves, with the reasoning being that the subject matter expertise of those agencies is most important factor in deciding any rule. The laws and judicial process works differently when it comes to agencies under the executive branch.
This was never true: it was simply the case that (under the principle of Chevron deference) that in cases of ambiguity, courts would defer to the agencies themselves. The courts still reserved the right to interpret the law, since that is literally their job.
Moreover, it's even less true since last year with the Loper Bright case, which overturned Chevron deference, and courts no longer defer to the agencies.
> Having an external governing individual is better than self-governance in most systems.
I don't know what this means. Who is an "external governing individual"? If you mean the president, I would say that he is (a) not external to the executive branch, (b) not entitled to decide matters of law by the Constitution, and (c) not qualified to decide matters of law by education and training.
The reason Chevron likely compelled the Executive Order, at least in part, is because the Trump administration likely views the ability for agencies to self-resolve ambiguities in their own rules as bad and potentially obstructive to their agenda.
For example, an agency might self-resolve an ambiguous rule to say they can’t be fired or similar, which would directly conflict with what the Trump administration wants to do.
While it was overturned, perhaps there are fears of other loopholes that they see that can accomplish this beyond simple case law.
I haven't understood this angle of sympathizers for Unitary Executive.
Even from a purely strategic play, and you sitting here saying, "it makes sense why the Executive branch would make their life even easier to rule with an even more ironed fist", does it ever give you pause to what you're saying? Lack of consolidation to power in the Executive is what ensures checks and balances.
This isn't a development you should be gunning for - in ANY administration, because even if you're pro-47, you're not going to like the precedent this creates for the power of the next admin.
Republicans and the Supreme Court will suddenly take a much greater interest in checks-and-balances when there is a different party in the White House... if that ever happens again.
Fascinating that Trump doesn’t even come close to breaking the record.
Does anyone know what the majority of the Executive Orders related to for the high-volume presidents and if those Executive Orders were eventually reversed or not? It’s a dense question though would be neat to know.
