Executive order
Some policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes.
Presidential executive orders, once issued, remain in force until they are canceled, revoked, adjudicated unlawful, or expire on their terms.
[9] The first executive order was issued by Washington on June 8, 1789; addressed to the heads of the federal departments, it instructed them "to impress [him] with a full, precise, and distinct general idea of the affairs of the United States" in their fields.
[16] However, in early 2025 Donald Trump already surpassed his number by issuing 63 executive orders in his first 22 days in office.
On June 29, the president issued Executive Order 6763 "under the authority vested in me by the Constitution", thereby creating the National Labor Relations Board.
[19] In the years that followed, Roosevelt replaced outgoing justices of the Supreme Court with people more in line with his views: Hugo Black, Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson and James F. Byrnes.
Historically, only George Washington has had equal or greater influence over Supreme Court appointments (as he chose all its original members).
Large policy changes with wide-ranging effects have been implemented by executive order, including the racial integration of the armed forces under President Truman.
The order was then delegated to General John L. DeWitt, and it subsequently paved the way for all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to be incarcerated in ten specially built prison camps the duration of World War II.
[27] On July 30, 2014, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution authorizing Speaker of the House John Boehner to sue President Obama over claims that he exceeded his executive authority in changing a key provision of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") on his own[28] and over what Republicans claimed had been "inadequate enforcement of the health care law", which Republican lawmakers opposed.
In particular, Republicans "objected that the Obama administration delayed some parts of the law, particularly the mandate on employers who do not provide health care coverage".
[30] Part of President Donald Trump's executive order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, which temporarily banned entry to the US of citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including for permanent residents, was stayed by a federal court on January 28, 2017.
[32] The degree to which the president has the power to use executive orders to set policy for independent federal agencies is disputed.
Depending on the state constitution, a governor may specify by what percentage each government agency must reduce and may exempt those that are already particularly underfunded or cannot put long-term expenses (such as capital expenditures) off until a later fiscal year.
In 2007, for example, Sonny Perdue, the governor of Georgia, issued an executive order for all its state agencies to reduce water use during a major drought.
The administrative weight of those proclamations is upheld because they are often specifically authorized by congressional statute, making them "delegated unilateral powers".
