With 28 Executive Orders Signed, President Biden Is Off To A Record Start
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President Joe Biden puts the cap on a pen after signing an executive order in the State Dinning Room of the White House.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
Biden’s actions so far include:
- 28 executive orders
- 4 substantive proclamations (plus one ceremonial)
- 10 presidential memoranda
- 2 letters (re-joining the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Agreement)
And while the numbers are large, these actions aren’t barrier breaking. They call for the creation of task forces, direct agencies to begin a regulatory process or explore a policy change.
«A lot of what these orders consist of are plans to make plans, in a sense, said Rudalevige. «There’s a lot of reviewing, reporting, sort of an urging to rev up that process, but it’s not a substitute for the process itself.
Executive actions can’t create new laws — they have to exist within the constraints of the constitution and existing statute. They direct the executive branch to do what is already in its power. And as a result they can be, and often are, reversed by the next president. In fact, many of Biden’s actions take aim at things President Trump had done with a swipe of his Sharpie.
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«There’s a lot of talk with good reason about the number of executive orders that I’ve signed, Biden said while signing the immigration executive orders. «I’m not making new law. I’m eliminating bad policy.
Some Republicans have criticized Biden for pushing through Democratic priorities with a signature, after preaching unity and bipartisanship. The number of actions is notable, but these sorts of reversals are something most presidents do.
«The motto of the Reagan transition team was ‘when in doubt, undo.’ That was the motto, said Phillip Cooper, a professor of government at Portland State University. Biden’s team, he said, «didn’t want to just undo, they wanted to put back in place what had been there before or pick up what had been there before and build on it.
President Trump made reversing Obama administration policies a mission of his presidency. Now Biden is reversing the reversals. For instance, the letter he signed returning the U.S. to the Paris Climate Agreement, which Trump had just pulled the U.S. out of in November.
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President Nixon signed an executive order on Jan. 23, 1969 creating his new Urban Affairs Council.
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Biden signs executive actions in the Oval Office of the White House on January 28.
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Biden signs executive actions in the Oval Office of the White House on January 28.
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This gets at another purpose of executive orders: they can be the equivalent of very formally written press releases. They allow a president to signal that they are doing something — that they are delivering on the promises they made when they ran for office, even if the executive action is really just the first step in a long process of change.
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