With a few exceptions, I agree with the objectives of nearly all of the executive orders President Donald Trump has signed during his first few days in the White House.
From declaring an emergency on the porous southern border to ending former President Joe Biden’s restrictions on energy production, most of the orders reflect things that need to be done to restore order and prosperity.
And it is refreshing to see a president so quickly signal he’s going to keep the campaign promises he made to voters.
But — and this is a big but — the ends do not justify the means.
I said that when Biden was using executive orders to ignore the Constitution and the Supreme Court and forgive $200 billion in student loans.
When Barack Obama used his pen to sign a disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, I said it then.
Executive orders are the wrong way to deliver the change the nation needs, and for a few reasons.
First, executive orders don’t produce lasting reforms. They’re only as permanent as the president who issues them. A new president can toss out his predecessor’s orders as soon as he takes office, as Trump did wholesale Monday.
The best example of the ping pong nature of executive orders is the Paris Climate Accord. Obama committed the United States to the treaty without Senate approval. When Trump became president the first time, he took the U.S. out of the pact. Biden put us back in. And now Monday Trump ordered us out again.
Had any of the presidents convinced Congress to approve the treaty, it would be enduring, and those impacted could do long-term planning with some confidence.
As a republic, America guarantees the people, through their elected representatives, a voice in how they are governed.
Trump is making sweeping changes in policy that will significantly alter life in America and is doing so without engaging the legislative branch.
When a leader sets legislators on the sidelines, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did during the COVID pandemic and Trump is doing now, republican governing gives way to autocracy.
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There’s no excuse for Trump to engage in one-man rule. His party controls both branches of Congress. If he applied his vaunted deal-making skills, he should be able to get what he wants.
It may take longer, but it would last longer, too.
Governing by fiat also contributes to an increasingly expansive view of executive powers. Presidents begin to think there are no limits on what they can do.
Witness Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. That right is promised by the U.S. Constitution, which states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Clear as a bell.
By intent of the Founders, amending the Constitution is an arduous process. If it can be changed by a mere executive order, then no constitutional protection is safe.
Presidential powers rarely shrink. Each new president builds on the expanded authority of the one who came before.
Republicans who are cheering the speed and sweep of Trump’s push to transform Washington should ask themselves how they’ll feel when it’s a Democratic president wielding the pen.
Nolan Finley writes for the Detroit News.
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