When politicians make campaign promises, the public can only wonder if those promises will be kept. In the repeat race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, discerning voters can now look back at their executive orders and consider what each candidate has already accomplished.
Executive orders are one of the clearest pictures of presidential priorities.
Working outside the legislative branches, the executive order allows presidents (and state governors) to change government policy. It can be wielded as a useful tool to advance administration goals or as an overstep of authority.
President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which freed millions of slaves, is one of the most well-known executive orders….