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Comment by calibas

1 year ago

If you're wondering why the President can essentially write his own laws when that's not how our system is supposed to work, it's because the President gets extra powers whenever we're in a state of national emergency.

We've been in a state of national emergency since 1979.

19 comments

calibas

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teeray  1 year ago

States of emergency should at least go to congress for renewal every 3 months as a measure to be voted on individually (cannot be tied, for example, to budgets). If that's not enough to kill it eventually, it should automatically become a ballot measure on the next Presidential Ballot after some number of renewals.

  • abrichr  1 year ago

    Emergencies must be renewed annually by the President. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12170:

    > The order was first declared on 14 November 1979 (EO 12170). At least 11 executive orders were based on this emergency state. The emergency, which was renewed in 2023 for the 44th time, is the "oldest existing state of emergency."

    • teeray  1 year ago

      > Emergencies must be renewed annually by the President.

      This is like agencies investigating themselves and inevitably finding themselves clear of any wrongdoing.

    • kelnos  1 year ago

      That's equivalent to emergencies being permanent and not subject to oversight.

      There is very little difference between the president saying "there's an emergency until I say there isn't", and repeating every year, "there's an emergency for the next year".

      Though that Wikipedia article does say that Congress is supposed to review emergency orders, but in practice they just let the president do whatever.

Aloisius  1 year ago

The national emergency declared in 1979, against Iran, was done under the IEEPA which grants the President the power to block transactions and freeze assets against foreign threats. It doesn't grant the power to make laws.

  • calibas  1 year ago

    You're delegating powers to the President that would normally require an act of congress. The sanctions against Iran are a relatively tame example, there's 46 other national emergencies that give the President far more power.

    Here's some good reading:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/27/democrats-biden-som...

    They successfully argued the President can just attack other countries whenever he wants, so long as it's part of fighting "terrorism".

_cs2017_  1 year ago

Wow thanks man for sharing! This is so unexpected, I thought you're trolling! But google search doesn't lie: https://www.history.com/news/national-state-of-emergency-us-....

Quoting from History.com: "When Donald Trump started his second term on January 20, 2025, the United States had around 40 active emergency declarations (no really, we are serious), including the national emergency George W. Bush declared in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks".

doctorpangloss  1 year ago

Yeah. Dude. I don’t like the outcome, but he has “extra” powers because Republicans won a lot of elections and are a majority in all three branches of government and in many statehouses.