Executive orders have historically been a way to get things done when the law is ambiguous. It has not, as far as I know, been used to try to directly contradict existing law that has been upheld by the judiciary branch. I don't even know how that would be legal - if it were then it upends literally the entire basis of our government.

We're essentially saying the president is a dictator - which I know is what the current president wants, but I sure hope the rest of the country doesn't.

> Executive orders have historically been a way to get things done when the law is ambiguous. It has not, as far as I know, been used to try to directly contradict existing law that

Isn't this the case with the federal government not enforcing its own marijuana sale, possession, and use laws for at least a decade now (in states that have legalized or decriminalized it), across several presidents from both parties? I don't think it's ambiguous what's supposed to happen legally when it comes to Schedule I controlled substances.

The federal government deciding to bring charges or not are a completely different matter from an executive order. If you can point to an executive order that "legalizes" marijuana when there are laws explicitly making it illegal, cite away. It would be news to me.

I think this is different. I generally feel like executive orders are 1) used to take some kind of affirmative step that the dysfunction in congress is blocking 2) have some level of defensible legal theory. This feels like the opposite. My understanding of the 90 day extension is that it's supposed to be there to allow a deal to close, but there is no evidence I've seen of a deal being worked on so the legal theory seems to be really flimsy. Disregarding a law, while not unprecedented, is not a great sign given some of the incoming administration statements on a ton of other topics.

>My understanding of the 90 day extension is that it's supposed to be there to allow a deal to close

It is also important to recognize that Trump isn't just talking about invoking the 90 day extension. He is promising companies they won't be held responsible for the fines they should be accruing for violating the law before he even takes office.

Biden is still the president and he’s not enforcing the law. It’s not clear to me that the president can’t grant an extension later once all the statutory requirements are met. What’s the difference between one day and say 10 days?

Putting that aside, the legal theory here—where an exception is there for this purpose and we’re quibbling about its application—is nowhere close to “flimsy” when it comes to constraints on executive prosecutorial discretion.

Biden's ability to enforce the law seems to be pretty constrained given the amount of time left in his term. Like asking Garland to start a prosecution isn't exactly practical. I think it's also worth noting that TikTok was complying with the ban until they were given a signal by the incoming administration that they weren't planning on enforcing it.

The text of the law isn't totally unambiguous, but I still think it's quite clear that the conditions where a 90 day extension could be granted aren't being met, so we'll have to agree to disagree on how flimsy it is.

The number of executive orders has decreased every president since Bill Clinton.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125024/us-presidents-ex...

If you look at the "per year" it increased again under Trump.

Why would you look at it “per year” when speaking in terms of “per president” other than to say “except trump”

Because not all presidents have served for two full terms. Examining things while ignoring the time period over which they happened does not a meaningful analysis make.

In that case, neither metric is appropriate, and we should be looking for the trend per presidential term.

O(year) ≈ O(term) / 4

(Assuming that all terms are the full 4 years long, which happens to be the case for all of the presidents being discussed in this thread)

Why would you not?

It depends on what happens after the litigation over it. It will be a revolutionary departure if the law continues to not be enforced, after the courts demand it be, if they do.

Couldn't agree more. Each incoming administration since Bush has only expanded executive power, despite decrying its usage in the admin they replaced. This is a very predictable outcome even when looking ahead from 20 years ago, and its easy to see where things will stand in another 20 years.

The current norm that comes to mind is Biden trying to cancel student debt, to which the SC said no.

It's nothing new in that it's something that should have been decided by Congress, not the executive. But I think it's new for the executive to ignore the SC like that. Any counter examples?