America has endured little over a week of the new Trump Administration, and already there’s a sense of commitment towards unconstitutional governance. President Trump, as of this past weekend, has issued 17 executive orders and memorandums with the goal of making good on many of his campaign pledges. The problem is that the vast majority of these orders are completely unconstitutional.
In fact there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the President the power to issue executive orders. All legislative actions must originate in the Congress and be signed by the President, then the executive branch must execute the law. In that sense executive orders are an efficient tool for the President to issue procedures of how the law will be followed to the departments and agencies working for the executive branch. In the short amount of time that Trump has been President, his executive actions aim at tweaking, disregarding and creating policies not authorized by Congress.
For example one of the President’s first actions was to direct agency heads to waive requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). While this is mostly seen as a symbolic gesture, directing bodies of the executive branch to not faithfully execute laws is unconstitutional and unacceptable, regardless of a law’s ineptitude.
When a President directly objects to following laws, Congress has the right and duty to hold the President accountable. If they fail in this regard, they are also violating their oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. Unfortunately, members of Congress are proving they have much more dedication to their parties and pockets than the Constitution.
While the ACA directive from Trump disregards current law, he’s done much worse. He has also issued executive orders which prohibit federal dollars from going to overseas organizations that provide abortions and for executive agencies to start planning for his ill-conceived border wall with Mexico. The arguments for or against these policies are futile.
The real problem with these orders is that the President is directing how federal money is spent, which is a power that is solely allotted to Congress. Congress should be furious that an administration is forcefully allocating the power of the purse to themselves, but it’s doubtful we will hear this spineless 114th Congress stand up for themselves or the Constitution they swore an allegiance to.
All of these decrees from President Trump beg the question... How did we get here? How have we gotten to a place where the executive branch has the power it does and is not aggressively challenged by the legislative or judicial branch? This overreaching from the executive branch is not something new under Trump.
We also allowed it under the Obama administration when he unilaterally changed immigration law regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. We allowed it under the second Bush administration when he secretly issued an order allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor and eavesdrop on any and all phone calls made by Americans. We’ve been allowing it for a long time; FDR issued nearly 4,000 executive orders during his historically long tenure as President.
With executive orders out of control, our adherence to checks and balances is severely threatened. We now have a precedent for presidents taking these actions, and there’s no end in sight. This should frighten anyone who is fearful of any branch of government having too much power. This is more than an ideological or party-based concern.
Republicans cried foul over Obama’s executive actions. Democrats are crying foul over Trump’s executive actions. What hasn’t broken through to the majority of Americans is that we aren’t necessarily afraid of a particular person being President; We are afraid of the power that they wield.
Going forward there is not much we can do over the next two years. Not to be a downer, but the tables are set. The politicians are in place. As Americans, our number one goal when making our political choices in the 2018 mid-term election should be selecting individuals who will uphold constitutional governance over party preferences and demand that balance be restored to our republic. That’s our responsibility as voters and American citizens.
Until then we must be vigilant in the powers exercised by all branches of government, but especially the executive branch, with which President Trump has already run amok.
Nick Eagle is a graduate student in economics from Apopka, Fla.
