Who Writes Executive Orders

[Chronos]

@Tired_and_Cranky

Who writes them? Me, once. But I won’t say which one or why. It’s basically true that an executive order can be written by anyone the president chooses.

I understand wanting to retain some anonymity, but could you at least say whether you were working for some politician in office, or for some interest group, or acting as an individual? And was it your idea, or did someone else have the idea and just ask you for the wording?

[Tired_and_Cranky]

It wasn’t my idea. The genesis was many special interests with had the ear of the president before the election had ideas for revising the regulation of a particular industry. The president-elect wanted to satisfy all those many people whose ideas were not entirely fleshed out and not entirely internally consistent with each other. So a grab bag of ideas from many sources and some broad-based principles were plopped in an executive order directing the key industry regulator to come up with a satisfactory plan - in a report (very much like what @Exapno_Mapcase said).

[DemonTree]

Thanks to everyone who answered.

@Exapno_Mapcase

The transition team would have been stuffed with lawyers, prepped to put policies into legal language. The lawyers would pass them up to Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles. She was his campaign director, so she had extensive opportunity to find out what his intentions were. She and the President’s legal counsel, David Warrington, would have vetted them and told Trump he’d get what he wanted. I refuse to believe he read 100 EOs.

Lmao, not a chance he read them all. Makes sense that it works that way.

@Max_S

Trump tasks congressman with writing executive order he could issue to halt offshore wind | AP News

This was one of the most surprising ones to me. Is it pure negative polarisation or is there some actual reasoning?

Eliminating birthright citizenship would probably be the most consequential, but it’s unconstitutional, right?

@Tired_and_Cranky

Who writes them? Me, once. But I won’t say which one or why. It’s basically true that an executive order can be written by anyone the president chooses.

I was not expecting to get that answer! Cool.

@Tired_and_Cranky

No one has mentioned the traditional role of the Office of Legal Counsel (Office of Legal Counsel | Office of Legal Counsel), which is a part of the Department of Justice that advises the White House on legal matters. In the ordinary course of business, all executive orders will be reviewed by the OLC. If the matter concerns a particular agency, senior management of that agency will also usually review it and have input.

The recent executive orders were certainly drafted before the inauguration. No one from the OLC or the affected agencies should have been involved in drafting them. However, the incoming president gets a transition budget to pay staff and get started on substantive work, like drafting and reviewing executive orders. Many or most of the staffers working on the transition team will be in senior positions in the new administration. The transition team likely included the very same lawyers who are now working in the OLC.

So they were probably written by the people (lawyers?) who would normally do so, just as part of Trump’s transition team before they started working for the relevant agencies and offices.

[Tired_and_Cranky]

Yes. If transition team lawyers didn’t do the first drafts, they almost certainly reviewed and revised them.

[LurkMeister]

Not intended as a hijack, or a political question, but I’m curious about something and lack sufficient Google-Fu to find an answer.

Much has been made of the number of EOs which Trump made on his first day. Has any other president issued a lot of EOs immediately after their inauguration? I’ve never heard of this being a thing that was done in the past.

[DemonTree]

@LurkMeister

Much has been made of the number of EOs which Trump made on his first day. Has any other president issued a lot of EOs immediately after their inauguration? I’ve never heard of this being a thing that was done in the past.

This article says Biden signed 17 executive orders on his first day in office, many reversing previous Trump policies. It also has a list of them all:

https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/interactive_biden-first-day-executive-orders/

[JRDelirious]

@DemonTree

@Max_S

Trump tasks congressman with writing executive order he could issue to halt offshore wind | AP News

This was one of the most surprising ones to me. Is it pure negative polarisation or is there some actual reasoning?

Van Drew has been bent out of shape about offshore wind for years and has argued everything from hazards to navigation to saving the whales to fisheries to South Jersey Shore tourism. Since this is something that fits in with “green energy” issues and was supported by Biden’s legislation, Trump is happy to join along.

[Horatius]

@JRDelirious

Van Drew has been bent out of shape about offshore wind for years

So has Trump, ever since they put some up that could be seen from one of his golf courses. He hated that they “ruined” his view, and decided that meant the windmills were inherently evil, so he accepts every negative thing anyone says about them.

ETA:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91264701/why-donald-trump-hates-wind-power

[Hari_Seldon]

@DemonTree

Eliminating birthright citizenship would probably be the most consequential, but it’s unconstitutional, right?

It would appear so. But the only relevant case was decided by only 6-2 (one justice didn’t vote because he missed the arguments). The two dissenters argued that the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” really meant “subject to only the jurisdiction thereof” and that any born in the US and holding any other citizenship is not automatically a citizen. This contradicts the statements made at the time that the clause was intended to exclude only diplomats and others subject to diplomatic immunity, but since when does SCOTUS look at what a provision meant to the drafters when it differs from what they want. I think that between 3 and 5 of the justices will take that view, so the original intent might not hold. It could mean that none of my grandchildren (all born in the US and all Canadian citizens) might not be US citizens. Note that that dissent made no reference to whether the parents were legally in the US. It was made at a time that there were no immigration restrictions.

[Zoobi]

I’d say the revoking of Executive Order 11246 is going to have very wide effects

[Smapti]

At least parts of them were apparently written by AI.

Trump Admin Accused of Using AI to Draft Executive Orders

[Smapti]

@veryfrank

I remember right around this time in his first term, Mitch McConnell saying “He’ll sign anything we put in front of him,” or something to that effect.

Government In Chaos: Donald Trump Signed An Executive Order That Just Says...

President Trump has signed into law a piece of paper containing only the words “HOT CUBE,” and federal agencies have been scrambling to figure out just what that means ever since.

[Max_S]

For the record, since this is FQ, ClickHole is a satire website and that article is not about a real executive order.

~Max

[jackdavinci]

I think anyone can write them. Often politicians just have random staffers come up with drafts for things.

Sometimes they have a dedicated writer, usually for speeches. I imagine most of them would have a lawyer look over it first but who knows with this guy.

A lot of legislation is heavily based off of drafts they are given by lobbyists and corporate representatives. Most of Trump’s policy comes from the Heritage Foundation, so a lot of the things were probably copy pasted from Project 2025.