Executive orders are one of the clearest pictures of a president’s priorities.
When politicians make campaign promises, the public can only wonder if those promises will be kept. In the repeat race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, discerning voters can now look back at their executive orders and consider what each candidate has already accomplished.
Executive orders are one of the clearest pictures of presidential priorities.
Working outside the legislative branches, the executive order allows presidents (and state governors) to change government policy. It can be wielded as a useful tool to advance administration goals or as an overstep of authority.
President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which freed millions of slaves, is one of the most well-known executive orders.
President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order in 1941 establishing the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which facilitated the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb.
In another executive order, President Roosevelt created internment camps in 1942 and forced 100,000 Japanese Americans to live in them under the umbrella of national security after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.