From: BoBox@webtv.net (Bo Tomlyn)
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 07:48:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Exec. Orders....

It was never intended that the president should rule by executive
decree, usurping the legislative role of Congress. But a top Clinton
aide has called this option 'kinda cool.' any older Washingtonians will
tell you they used to have a view of the river from their house. Now
they no longer have a river view; they no longer have their house.
Instead, federal offices filled with bureaucrats populate the city. 

During the course of the last 150 years, the role of president of the
United States has grown exponentially, as has his team of workers. Many
Americans, critics claim, have been asleep as one stealth presidency
after another has usurped the judicial authority of Congress by means of
executive orders, presidential directives and proclamations. . . . . 

The Constitution dictates that the laws shall originate in Congress and
the executive branch shall see that they are "faithfully executed"
(Article II, Section 3). In George Washington's day, executive orders
were no more than administrative directives to federal employees. 

"They have grown," says Bill Olsen, a constitutional lawyer and former
Reagan administration official, "to be a deliberate strategy to
circumvent the Congress and the legislative function." The more
executive orders on the books, the more the need for a huge tax-funded
bureaucracy to administer them. . . . . 

President Clinton has not been shy about signing his name to executive
orders. Since his inauguration he has issued nearly 300, and his critics
claim that he has been reckless, ordering more than his predecessors. 

In 1974, a special Senate Committee on National Emergencies and
Delegated Emergency Powers was alarmed to find that the United States
had been governed under emergency authority since 1933. Committee
cochairman Sen. Frank Church of Idaho cautioned: "It is distressingly
clear that our constitutional government has been weakened by 41 years
of emergency rule." Emergencies declared by FDR and Harry Truman still
were in effect, for example, and the committee found that over time
aggressive presidents had subsumed 470 legally delegated powers from
permissive Congresses to govern beyond normal constitutional powers. The
law allowed presidents to seize property, control production, restrict
travel and institute martial law. In other words, "Presidents could
manage every aspect of the lives of all American citizens," Church
wrote. 

. . . . The 1974 National Emergencies Act sunsetted all existing
emergencies at that time. Congress then passed legislation in 1976 and
in 1985 allowing termination of any national emergency by joint
resolution, though no such resolution has been offered. . . . . Olsen
argues that more citizens know about executive abuses than do
congressmen.