Executive Order

• Author: Theodore Eisenberg
• Pages: 944

Page 944

Executive orders, a class of presidential documents, primarily regulate actions of government officials and agencies. Although most executive orders are issued under specific statutory authorization, some, including President HARRY S. TRUMAN ' S STEEL SEIZURE order and executive orders affecting CIVIL RIGHTS, are issued on the President's own authority under Article II. Executive orders were not numbered until 1907 and were not required to be published until 1935.

Executive orders have taken on particular importance in times of war and in the field of civil rights. President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT'S executive orders played a key role in the WORLD WAR II Japanese relocation program, sustained in the JAPANESE AMERICAN CASES (1943?1944). Most executive orders concerning civil rights relate to employment by government contractors. Executive Order 8802 (1941), generated by a wartime need for labor, established a Committee on Fair Employment Practices to carry out a policy of nondiscrimination in defense industries. EXECUTIVE ORDERS 9980 AND 9981 (1948) declared a national policy of nondiscrimination in federal employment and sought to foster equality of treatment in the armed services. Executive Order 11603 (1962) attempted to promote nondiscrimination in federally assisted housing. On the more mundane level, executive orders also have been a vehicle through which Presidents promulgate the neverending plans for reorganizing the executive branch of government.

With the enactment of ANTIDISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION in the 1960s and the expansion of constitutional prohibitions on government discrimination, executive orders prohibiting discrimination became less important. They continue, however, to provide internal authority regulating the federal government's employment and contracting policies. And in requiring...