Editorial written by Chicago Tribune Editorial Board.
At the Illinois Holocaust Museum, soon to undergo a major renovation, a heart-tugging special exhibit in Skokie explores the internment of Japanese Americans in U.S. prison camps during World War II.
Front and center as visitors enter the exhibit? An executive order from the desk of then-President Franklin Roosevelt.
The notorious Order 9066 paved the way for imprisoning citizens, declaring the West Coast a war zone and thus permitting it to be cleared of anyone with Japanese heritage after the Pearl Harbor attack. Shamefully, more than 120,000 people were rounded up under threat of arrest and moved to harsh makeshift camps under armed guard.
Americans have been hearing a lot about executive orders since President Donald Trump took office in January. During his speech to a joint session of Congress, Trump bragged about already having signed more than 100 executive orders (some in front of cameras) and taking more than 400 executive actions — piling them up at a much faster pace than he did during his first term.
Courts across the country are considering challenges, upholding some of Trump’s orders for now and temporarily blocking others. People losing their minds over this spectacle need to remember that executive orders numbering in the hundreds are part of every modern administration, as are the court challenges.
Presidential orders and actions shaped American history long before Trump, for good and bad.
Illinois Republican Abraham Lincoln authored the Emancipation Proclamation, leaving no doubt the Civil War was being fought for civil rights. And before his terrible wartime order locking up blameless citizens, Roosevelt used executive orders to push through his New Deal.
Those who oppose a president’s orders typically demonize them, as Democrats have done with Trump. “His disrespect for the rule of law was unprecedented,” the Heritage Foundation once wrote. That judgment wasn’t about Trump, but rather President Bill Clinton, whose orders expanding federal regulations and environmental protections aggravated the conservative group, which went on to publish the Project 2025 playbook that featured so prominently at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Through executive action, Trump has launched jarring attacks on civil servants, immigrants in the country without legal permission, LGTBQ people and anyone involved in diversity initiatives. He pardoned felons who attacked police in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, while also targeting government watchdogs. He canceled predecessor Joe Biden’s executive orders addressing climate change, among others.
With Congress in the hands of Trump’s GOP, the pressure very much is on the judiciary to call balls and strikes.
Executive orders are unlawful if they override federal laws and statutes, and the president cannot use them to sidestep checks and balances, such as the power vested in Congress to make new laws or vested in the courts to determine if an executive action is constitutional.
Trump already has run afoul of the Constitution with his order meant to curb birthright citizenship. “It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” wrote U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee who has blocked Trump’s order — which we hope was a bit of political theater rather than a serious effort to overturn the 14th Amendment’s explicit guarantee.
While we expect similar court decisions to follow as the president tests the limits of his executive power, we also expect that much of Trump’s agenda will survive court challenges. For better or worse.
As history demonstrates, even lawful orders can still cause harm. Trump’s decision to rescind President Lyndon Johnson’s order setting civil rights obligations for federal contractors does not conflict with any statute, for instance, but his action still undermines civil liberties. Trump’s pardons of the Jan. 6 criminals also are firmly within his legal purview under the Constitution although they shocked many Americans and understandably so.
