Skip to content

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020

Do presidential executive orders always have the force of law?

Cory Dawson, Gigafact Foundry
no

Executive orders by a U.S. president have the force of law–unless they are challenged because they deal with matters not clearly delegated to the executive branch by the Constitution or Congress.

Every president since Washington has used executive orders. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama each issued between 250 and 300 during their tenures. As of Aug. 11, President Trump has signed 179. Opponents of a particular order may challenge it in court. President Truman's 1952 order taking over the steel business to block a strike was blocked by the Supreme Court.

Orders that redirect federal funds may clash with Congress' Constitutional "power of the purse." A Trump order on Aug. 8 extending unemployment payments enacted by Congress in March drew criticism from Democratic legislative leaders, but it's unclear if they will challenge it.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.

See all fact briefs

Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.