Comment by giantg2
1 year ago
'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch'
That's basically what EOs are already.
1 year ago
'The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch'
That's basically what EOs are already.
Yes it is trivial for the scope of presidential interpretation to extend over the executive branch. And this excerpt posits nothing about the oversight authority of other branches.
The more interesting phrase is about the AG. While the AG is already constitutionally understood to serve at the president's pleasure, this EO curtails any informal independence that the AG is afforded from past norms.
So I suppose it's declaring that AGs under a Trump administration shall serve as rubber stamps with no independent authority to interpret the law, granted via his claimed constitutional supremacy over the executive branch.
Perhaps it is a edict to AGs who've resisted orders from the President recently, to notice them that job title is the most supreme form of legal analysis in this executive branch. IANAL
No. EOs can be overturned by congress. This EO says that they can't - ie: there's no checks or balances on the President
"This EO says that they can't"
Where does it say that? What existing EOs explicitly say congress needs to overturn it?
“authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch”
That means that if Congress passes a law with an implicit/explicit interpretation the Executive Branch can simply ignore that.
And there are no existing EOs that say Congress needs to overturn it. It has been the rule since forever that Congress makes the laws. Executive Branch implements it accordingly.
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But you need to combine it with the fact that a whole bunch of agencies e.g. FCC, SEC are now no longer considered independent from the Executive Branch.
It’s the combination of actions that makes this so concerning.
One thing I'm interested in that they didn't cover in school, if there's 3 branches of government, then what branch were the independent agencies a part of before being moved into the executive?
Yes, the expanse of power is concerning. Historically, all three branches have substantially expanded their powers since inception. People in power always seem to take more of it.
Of course they were and are part of the Executive Branch. But the precedent for many decades was they were independent. Because not everything that happens in this world is governed by an explicit law.
And what is happening is unprecedented and right to be concerned about it.
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...plus journalism, the fourth branch.