Jim Hartman
President Trump’s blizzard of executive orders began on his Jan. 20 inauguration with a “shock and awe” strategy to establish additional presidential powers.
Trump signed 64 executive orders in his first 23 days in office exceeding the 55 he signed in the entire first year of his previous term.
Trump had people working for two years putting together these executive orders, many of which are in legal gray areas. They will be decided later by the courts on a case-by-case basis in a relatively slow process.
Congressional Republicans celebrated these executive actions. Their theme: “Promises made, promises kept!”
Trump already has made progress on half of his major campaign promises, according to the Washington Post.
But overwrought Democrats said Trump’s bold and aggressive actions had already produced a “constitutional crisis” just three weeks into his presidency.
Still reeling from their losses in November, Democrats have found little consensus on a message or direction. Frustrations abound.
Americans may not like the GOP, but they really don’t like the Democratic Party, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey. Democrats set a record 57% unfavorable rating, while just 31% of voters have a favorable view.
The Republican Party, meanwhile, has a 43% favorable rating among voters and a 45% negative rating.
Two Senate Democrats, Gary Peters of Michigan and Tina Smith of Minnesota, unexpectedly announced they would not seek re-election in 2026. That dims Democrats already bleak prospects of winning Senate control next year.
Trump along with adviser Elon Musk, his billionaire donor and appointed head of his Department of Government Efficiency, assert authority that includes cost-cutting and federal workforce reductions. These actions essentially fall into three categories: most are based on strong legal grounds, others are legally debatable, and still others appear to break current law.
The first category includes those decisions to pause discretionary spending to ensure it complies with Trump’s priorities. Most of these spending programs don’t have specific spending deadlines.
Government unions challenged Trump’s buyout offers for federal workers on the grounds that Congress hasn’t funded them. However, that doesn’t make them illegal per se. If Trump later doesn’t pay these workers, they could sue in federal claims court.
The judge in the case ruled the union had no standing to sue and allowed 77,000 workers to accept the offer to leave their jobs and be paid through September. Of 2.28 million federal employees, 3.4% took the offer, less than 5% to 10% the White House forecast.
The second category is more legally debatable, such as effectively dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. Congress established USAID and would have to act to abolish it. Less clear is whether a president can order employees to cease doing their jobs.
Trump is stretching laws to see what he can get away with, but so did Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Obama advertised having a pen-and-a-phone to rule by decree. “So sue me,” he taunted House Republicans. The Supreme Court blocked his DAPA, which protected millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Biden exceeded his power by cancelling student loans, mandating vaccines and banning evictions. After the Supreme Court blocked his first student loan write-off, he declared “that didn’t stop me” and used other illegal means.
Trump’s third category of actions are clear violations of current law including his order barring birthright citizenship. His goal is to invite legal challenges to get Supreme Court review. He argues previous rulings were wrongly decided.
A recent provocative tweet by JD Vance that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power” had Democrats crying wolf.
Trump’s actions are an attempted power grab, but currently there is no constitutional crisis as cases move through the courts.
A real crisis would come if Trump defied a Supreme Court ruling – and that could happen.
E-mail Jim Hartman at lawdocman1@aol.com.