What are executive orders, and how do they affect Michiganders?

President Donald Trump issued 143 executive orders in the first 100 days of his second term in the White House. Included among those were orders aimed at eliminating the Department of Education, rolling back gun safety regulations, imposing tariffs on nearly all imported goods and services, rescinding abortion rights protections, and slashing the federal workforce.

On May 1, Trump issued another order, to eliminate public funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, calling them “biased media.” 

Many of Trump’s orders cite authority from presidential powers given to the president by Congress for times of national emergencies. Some are currently being challenged by state attorneys general and other lawyers in federal courts, alleging that they do not follow the laws as written or the Constitution.

What is an executive order?

An executive order is a set of instructions issued by the president that directs members of the executive branch to carry out certain actions under a law or in accordance with the president’s constitutional powers.

Although neither the Constitution nor federal laws address the president’s ability to issue executive orders, it is accepted as a presidential power. “In addition to conveying policy goals or directives, an executive order or other written instrument issued by the President may have the force of law as long as it is issued pursuant to one of his granted powers,” said the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in a 2021 report.

Most legislation passed by Congress contains broad goals, but lacks details on how to achieve them, Eric J Segall, a constitutional law scholar and a professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, told the Michigan Independent.

“So the idea is, Congress passes legislation, and then the president has to go out and make that legislation work,” Segall said. “Most of the time … it’s a big, big topic that requires study by experts and examination and flexibility. Flexibility is crucial because times change. So from very early on in our country’s history, very early on, the president has been issuing these things called executive orders, which, when Congress properly delegates that authority to the president … then the president can issue rules that just have the effect of law.”

Executive orders have been issued by every president from the very beginning: President George Washington issued the first eight executive orders, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Every president has issued at least one except William Henry Harrison, who died just 32 days into his term in office.

What is the status of Trump’s executive orders?

Experts told the Michigan Independent that the president can only issue executive orders in the exercise of presidential authority as defined by Article II of the Constitution or of authority delegated to him by Congress. While most of Trump’s executive orders have gone into effect, several have been challenged in federal court.

“There are a great many executive orders by this administration, and in fairness, some previous ones too, that don’t meet either of those tests and therefore are pretty egregiously illegal,” said Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. Somin is co-counsel in a pending legal challenge to Trump’s tariffs.

During his first months in office, Trump issued orders stripping citizenship from American-born children of immigrants, blocking federal funding for cities that do not allow local law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration laws, eliminating collective bargaining for many federal employees, and overriding state election laws. According to a U.S. News & World Report tracker, the courts have issued injunctions pausing their implementation.

Challenges have been filed to his orders to dismantle the Department of Education, increase offshore drilling, and roll back job protections for federal employees.

Somin pointed to several other Trump orders he believed to be illegal: “I would single out as particularly important the executive orders declaring that there is an invasion across the southern border and thereby overriding many immigration laws; the use of the Alien Enemies Act as a tool of deportation in peacetime; the massive trade war started by an executive order issued under a statute which doesn’t even mention the word tariffs.”

Segall said that orders based on the claim that a national emergency exists are illegal: “Most of what he’s doing, to any reasonable lawyer or person, clearly exceeds the bounds of his authority, but only for one reason. There’s only one reason for that: We’re not in an emergency. We’re not in a war. … All of [the executive orders] that say we are in an emergency, all of those, I think, are inconsistent with the underlying laws.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“Every president since World War II, everyone, without exception, has taken more power than the previous, but nothing, nothing like Donald Trump is doing,” Segall said.

What effects are Trump’s executive orders having in Michigan?

Trump’s executive orders have forced some Michigan departments, institutions and businesses to make difficult decisions about their futures.

Michigan’s automakers have experienced abrupt changes under Trump’s tariffs on foreign vehicles and auto parts, which have created uncertainty in an industry vital to the state’s economy. Trump signed an executive order April 29 providing for American car producers to receive partial reimbursement of tariffs on imported parts used in cars assembled in the United States after several automotive trade groups wrote to the Trump administration asking for relief from the 25% auto tariffs he established with an executive order earlier this year. The letter said Trump’s tariff policies would cause auto suppliers to “face production stoppages, layoffs and bankruptcy.” 

In response to Trump’s threats against higher education, the Michigan State University Faculty Senate has joined other Big Ten universities in asking their governing bodies to create a “mutual defense compact” that would allow them to offer financial and legal assistance to one another in the face of federal actions.

“Recent and escalating politically motivated actions by governmental bodies pose a significant threat to the foundational principles of American higher education, including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of free speech,” reads a resolution passed by the MSU Faculty Senate on April 15. “The Trump administration and aligned political actors have signaled a willingness to target individual institutions with legal, financial, and political incursion designed to undermine their public mission, silence dissenting voices, and/or exert improper control over academic inquiry.”

At the annual MI Healthy Climate Conference in Detroit in April, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy announced an $8.9 million grant competition to support the state’s clean energy initiatives despite almost losing access to the federal dollars to fund it.

The statewide competition, dubbed the MI Healthy Climate Challenge, had been funded under the Solar for All program established by former President Joe Biden’s administration; Trump moved to freeze spending on all climate grants after he took office, but a judge subsequently blocked the president’s attempt at withholding the already allocated money.

According to MLive, state officials said that they will continue to monitor federal actions related to the Solar for All program funding.

“No matter what the headwinds may be, no matter the lies that are told, no matter the threats that are made, we must only move in one direction here in the state of Michigan,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II.