1. Presidency Key Terms
How the president can circumvent Congress

2. Executive Orders
 an order or directive issued by the head of
the executive branch at some level of
government.
 U.S. Presidents have issued executive
orders since 1789, usually to help officers
and agencies of the executive branch
manage the operations within the federal
government itself.
 there is no constitutional provision or
statute that explicitly allows them, though
there is a vague grant of "executive power"
given in Article II, Section 1of the
Constitution, and furthered by the

3. Executive Orders
 Until the 1950s, there were no rules
or guidelines on how to use them
 The Supreme Court ruled in
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v.
Sawyer (1952) that EO 10340 from
Truman placing all steel mills in the
country under federal control was
invalid because it attempted to
make law, rather than clarify or act
to further a law put forth by the
Congress or the Constitution.
 Presidents since this decision have
generally been careful to cite which
specific laws they are acting under
when issuing new executive orders.

4. Executive Orders
 One extreme example of an
executive order is EO 9066,
where F.D. Roosevelt
delegated military authority to
remove any or all people
(used to target specifically
Japanese Americans and
German Americans) in a
military zone.
 The authority delegated to
General John L. DeWitt
paved the way for all
Japanese-Americans on the
West Coast to be sent to

5. Signing Statements
 A signing statement is a written pronouncement issued
by the President of the United States upon the signing
of a bill into law.
 There was controversy over the G.W. Bush’s use of
signing statements, which critics charged was unusually
extensive and modified the meaning of statutes.
 In July 2006, the American Bar Association stated that
the use of signing statements to modify the meaning of
duly enacted laws serves to "undermine the rule of law
and our constitutional system of separation of powers".
 Not mentioned in the constitution that he can alter
meaning of law. When a bill is presented to the
President, the constitution provides 3 choices: do
nothing, sign the bill, or (if he disapproves of the bill)
veto it in its entirety and return it to the House in which it
originated, along with his written objections to it.

6. Signing Statements
 Until the 1980s, signing statements were
generally triumphal, rhetorical, or political
proclamations and went mostly
unannounced.
 Until Reagan, only 75 statements had been
issued; Reagan and his successors George
H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton produced 247
signing statements among the three of them.
By the end of 2004, George W. Bush had
issued 108 signing statements containing 505
constitutional challenges. As of January 30,
2008, he had signed 157 signing statements
challenging over 1,100 provisions of federal
law.
 Some opponents have said that he in effect

7. Example
 The signing statement associated with the
Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, prohibiting
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of
detainees in U.S. custody attracted
controversy:
"The executive branch shall construe... the
Act, relating to detainees, in a manner
consistent with the constitutional authority of
the President to supervise the unitary
executive branch and as Commander in
Chief and consistent with the constitutional
limitations on the judicial power...."

8. Executive Agreements
 An agreement made between the executive branch of
the U.S. government and a foreign government without
ratification by the Senate.
 Less formal than a treaty and is not subject to the
constitutional requirement for ratification by two-thirds of
the U.S. Senate.
 The Constitution does not specifically give a president
the power to conclude executive agreements.
 However, he may be authorized to do so by Congress,
or he may do so on the basis of the power granted him
to conduct foreign relations.
 Despite questions about the constitutionality of
executive agreements, in 1937 the Supreme Court
ruled that they had the same force as treaties. Because
executive agreements are made on the authority of the
incumbent president, they do not necessarily bind his
successors.

9. Examples
 For example, after the outbreak of World War II
but before American entry into the conflict,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt negotiated an
executive agreement that gave the United
Kingdom 50 overage destroyers in exchange for
99-year leases on certain British naval bases in
the Atlantic.
 The use of executive agreements increased
significantly after 1939. Prior to 1940 the U.S.
Senate had ratified 800 treaties and presidents
had made 1,200 executive agreements; from
1940 to 1989, during World War II and the Cold
War, presidents signed nearly 800 treaties but
negotiated more than 13,000 executive
agreements.
 Clinton authorised the Comprehensive Test Ban
agreement with other states in 1999, even
though the treaty had failed to ratified in the