Executive Orders 101

On the WSJ Law Blog, Ashby Jones interviewed Kenneth R. Mayer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin and author of With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (Princeton UP, 2002) about executive orders. On the issue of whether Mayer expected "Obama to overturn all or most of Bush’s orders," Mayer responded:

I doubt it. If there’s ever a time he needs to make decisions, he’s probably going to like the fact that the envelope has been pushed a little. The boundaries between congressional and presidential power are often a little murky. For him to have an existing order to refer to as a sort of precedent for where the line gets drawn might turn out to be helpful down the line.

[JH]