Bush (291), and Barack Obama (260 as of Nov. Bush (166), Bill Clinton (364), George W. Other modern presidents and their tallies include Dwight Eisenhower (484), Lyndon Johnson (325), Richard Nixon (346), Jimmy Carter (320), Ronald Reagan (381), George H.W. The record holder by far, though, is Franklin Roosevelt with 3,721-five of which the Supreme Court overturned in 1935. Other leading issuers of executive orders include Woodrow Wilson (1,803), Calvin Coolidge (1,203), Herbert Hoover (968), and Harry Truman (907).
Ulysses Grant with 217 was the first to break 200, and he held that record until Theodore Roosevelt came along (1,081).
Lincoln, with 48 executive orders, was the first to approach 50. Presidents who issued the least also include Thomas Jefferson (four) and John Quincy Adams (three). Washington issued a total of eight executive orders in his two terms, according to the project’s data, while John Adams, James Madison, and James Monroe all issued only one. Today, the official number is close to 14,000.Įven so, approximately 1,500 unnumbered executive orders also have been compiled, according to the American Presidency Project, which notes that there may be as many as 50,000 unnumbered orders. The Federal Register Act of 1936 built on that effort. The State Department began numbering them in 1907, working from files going back to 1862. Washington and his successors as president have issued thousands of executive orders. Still, the president has to sign the law enacting that change, unless Congress is able to override his veto.įederal courts also may strike down executive orders that exceed the scope of the president’s authority, as an appeals court did with President Bill Clinton’s order forbidding government contracts with businesses that employed strike-breakers, and the Supreme Court did with his order requiring the government to use foreign languages in providing federal benefits and services.
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When a president’s authority comes from power granted by statute, Congress is free to negate or modify that authority, or pass legislation to nullify the order itself, because the Constitution empowers Congress to make the laws that govern us. As such, Congress has little ability to regulate or limit that authority. When the president lawfully exercises one of these responsibilities, scholars generally agree, the scope of his authority to issue executive orders and other directives is especially broad. “He has not only the power, but also the responsibility to see that the Constitution and laws are interpreted correctly,” Heritage Foundation scholar Todd Gaziano wrote in 2001. The president has the sole constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and is granted broad discretion over federal law enforcement decisions.
In particular, Article II of the Constitution assigns the president the roles of commander in chief, head of state, chief law enforcement officer, and head of the executive branch. It can’t be used to give the presidency new powers. Put another way, an executive order can be used to execute a power the commander in chief already has. Under our system of government, the president’s authority to issue such orders (or to engage in any other form of unilateral executive action) must come from the Constitution or federal law. Other directives may be published or not, at the president’s discretion. The main difference between them is that federal law requires, with few exceptions, executive orders and proclamations “of general applicability and Legal effect” to be published in the Federal Register, where federal regulations are published. (One proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, students are taught in school with some oversimplification, “freed the slaves.”)Įach of these forms may direct the actions of government officials and agencies, and possibly affect the legal rights and responsibilities of private parties. Put simply, an executive order is a type of written instruction that presidents use to work their will through the executive branch of government.įrom George Washington on, our presidents have issued many forms of directives, the most familiar being executive orders and two others: Presidential memoranda and presidential proclamations. Americans often hear about executive orders in media coverage of national politics these days, especially when the president and Congress disagree on policy.Īnd why was it such a big deal, for example, that President Barack Obama moved to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation using his executive powers?
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