One of the most common “presidential” documents in our modern government is an executive order. Every U.S. president has issued at least one since George Washington took office in 1789, totaling more than 13,731 (at the time of writing). Media reports about “changes by decree” or “executive orders” rarely explain what the document is, or other technical details, such as why or how. They seem to be an “instant law” and sometimes steeped in controversy. Here, Teaching Legal Docs attempts to unpack these sometimes controversial legal documents from the executive branch of the U.S. government. An executive order is a signed, written, and published directive of the President of the United States that administers the operations of the federal government. They are numbered consecutively so that executive decrees can be referenced by the number or subject assigned to them. Other presidential documents sometimes resemble executive decrees in their format, formality and outcome, but have different purposes.
The proclamations, which are also signed and numbered consecutively, convey information about statutory holidays, commemorations, federal celebrations and trade. Administrative orders – e.g., memoranda, notices, letters, messages – are not numbered, but signed nonetheless and are used to administer the administrative affairs of the federal government. All three types of presidential documents—executive orders, proclamations, and certain administrative orders—are published in the Federal Register, the federal government`s daily newspaper published to inform the public about federal regulations and actions. They are also catalogued by the National Archives as official records of the federal government. Orders in Council and proclamations have the force of law, like orders issued by federal agencies, so they are codified under Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is the formal collection of all rules and regulations issued by the executive branch and other federal agencies. Decrees are not laws; they don`t need congressional approval, and Congress can`t just overturn them. Congress can pass legislation that could make it difficult, if not impossible, to enforce the order, such as cutting funding. Only a sitting U.S. president can repeal an existing executive order by issuing another executive order to that effect. The format, content, and documentation of executive orders have changed throughout the history of the U.S.
presidency. Today, decrees follow a strict format and documentation system. Usually, the White House issues the order first, and then it is published in the Federal Register, the official newspaper of the federal government. As more permanent documentation, orders are also registered under Title 3 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, which is simply a codification of the standing rules issued by the executive branch of the U.S. government. The decrees are numbered. Each decree is assigned a number unique to the Order and consecutively compared to previous decrees. The State Department began numbering executive orders in 1907 and has even worked backwards to assign numbers to all orders registered since 1862. In 1936, the Federal Register Act introduced the system that is still used today. Sometimes there is an implementing regulation that precedes the numbering system, which may assign it a number already used with a distinguishing letter (e.g.
7709, 7709-A). As a result, there are actually more executive decrees than the recent figure. There are formatting differences between executive orders issued by the White House Press Office, those printed in the Federal Register, those printed under Title 3, or those found in the digital archive as HTML text. However, regardless of the source, all formats contain fundamental components that are at the heart of the decree document. These components are described below and numbered in the following example: White House Executive Orders www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders the current presidential administration are available in PDF format from the White House Press Office. National Archives and Records Administration www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/ archives for all things United States. Government, the National Archives maintains a digital index of executive decrees that can be searched by date, issue or subject. Orders can be viewed in PDF or text format, in the Federal Register or under Title 3 of the United States Code. American Presidency Project www.presidency.ucsb.edu/executive_orders.php An archive kept by the University of California, Santa Barbara contains texts of nearly every decree, dating back to the early nineteenth century by year of issue. Presidential decrees, both historical and contemporary, can usually be found online. Often, orders can be located by president, date, number or issuing subject. Historical or online archives may offer the text of an order or a PDF file of the Federal Register entry on the order, or a PDF file of the order of the White House.
The three presentation formats contain the previously identified elements and can serve as valuable primary sources. Here are some excellent online repositories for executive decrees: This benchmark is assessed annually as part of the Civic End-of-Course Assessment.