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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Executive orders. When Obama rode somewhat roughshod with them, people were okay with them. They didn't complain. Congress hamstrung the president so, sure, why not let him have those powers. Now that the other guy is following suit, oh, no, executive power, abuse of power!

Nothing against Obama, I voted for him, but I find it a bit odd that because the new guy is the opposition suddenly it's a constitutional issue whereas before cuz it was our guy we let it pass.

It reminds me of the dissonance in some Calexiters --the same people who mourned Brexit. It's only good when you do it.

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> When Obama rode somewhat roughshod with them, people were okay with them.

Accuracy of the characterization aside, no they weren't.

> They didn't complain.

Yes, they did. All the time. Even sued to overturn a number of them, in some cases successfully.

> It reminds me of the dissonance in some Calexiters --the same people who mourned Brexit. It's only good when you do it.

More accurately, people think content matters (for legislation or executive orders), not just the style of action, and context matters (for exiting a larger union).

You'll have to kindly point me to all the execs writing "op-eds" about those times Obama issued executive orders, because I don't recall any.

It has not been uncommon for past presidents, incl. Obama, to issue immigration bans or pauses for certain groups of people. You can argue the immediacy or the reasoning, but the results to travelers were similar.

No, they were not similar.

Obama did not ever ban hundreds of thousands of valid green card or visa holders from re-entering the country where they currently reside full time. Which has also -- effectively -- made those still in the US subject to an exit visa.

As a result, he also did not sow mass chaos by springing a poorly communicated status change on people in the air coming to a country that had already provided them with documents for entry.

Most EOs in the past (incl Obama's) have been about relaxing laws, not inventing new restrictions.

I think it is worth specifically calling out one of the main points of the Twitter post you linked: people who are upset about Trump's executive order on immigration were not necessarily fine with everything Obama ever did.

If it meant we could get Trump out tomorrow, I would gladly vote for Obama a third time. Still, Obama did a number of things while in office that I strongly disagreed with -- and a lot of things that I strongly agreed with. It turns out that life is complicated.

Averaged across 2 terms, Obama issued the fewest executive orders of any US President since Grover Cleveland. (Assuming I didn’t miscount; data here http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php)

That's a bit of an oversimplification, no?

The number of EOs don't matter. What's in them matters.

I don't understand this whole obsession about the evils of executive orders. The making of an executive order is simply the invocation of a power that is either constitutionally or legislatively granted to the President and the Executive Branch. There are plenty of areas where it is absolutely appropriate to grant the executive branch authority to make decisions, issue policy memoranda, make regulations/subsidiary legislation, and so on.

The problem is only when said executive actions are either a) ultra vires (beyond the power that the law grants to the executive to make these decisions) or b) completely insane. In the case of this particular executive order, it may well be both.

Must everything that's legal be unobjectionable?

Would you see nothing wrong with segregation, Jim Crow, and slavery? All of those were perfectly legal in the United States at one point.

I think the parent agrees with you. The rhetoric around executive orders recently has spilled over from "I disagree with these particular executive orders" to "executive orders are inherently evil." In the Republican primary we saw people promising to repeal every existing executive order (because purple hearts and executive-branch pay scales are bad?). The parent was objecting to this, while certainly allowing that particular orders may be a problem.

Indeed! There's a tonne of things which rightly fall within the domain of the executive to make regulations, I happen to think that this immigration order goes way too far - and indeed even if it was made by the legislature it would still be immoral. I agree that legal != unobjectionable, of course!

It's the contents of the orders that people are upset about.

This is Whataboutism.

Case law is based on "whatabout-ism" so there is little unusual about it. It's nice and quippy to say "whataboutism" and be dismissive but it's a really important principle in common law.

This discussion does not even approach the rigor of jurisprudence.

It's a constitutional issue because it's a constitutional issue (Due Process and Equal Protection). Not because it's the "new guy."

It's a constitutional issue in some sense (executive orders --but Obama was pretty much unchallenged) due process? Tell me which country will grant me (a foreigner to them) due process upon denial of entry into their ports of entry.

No, it's a constitutional issue in the sense that it's a constitutional issue: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3437026/Darweesh-...

"The petitioners have a strong likelihood of success in establishing that the removal of the petitioner and others similarly situated violates their rights to Due Process and Equal Protection guaranteed by the United States Constitution"

Its not unconstitutional to issue Executive Orders. It is unconstitutional to deny equal protection of laws to green card and work permit holders. Or at least, a Federal Judge thinks there is a strong enough case to issue an injunction to this particular Executive Order. I had no issues with the other orders that Trump issued, fwiw.

It's a constitutional issue in every sense. The US Congress ALONE has the power to make policy. The POTUS can relax policy enforcement, but cannot enforce policy that was never made. What part of this is hard for you to understand??

Where did you get from? That's 100% wrong. The power to determine who is admissable to the US lies in the hands of the president when it comes to the security of the country.

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