I know it seems silly to belabor the issue now that he’s no longer in office, but I think it’s important to set the record straight that President Obama did not govern by Executive Order, despite what his critics and even defenders claim.
I’ve heard some liberals either try to justify Obama’s so-called “excessive” Executive Orders by blaming a lazy, obstructive Congress (the 112th and 113th Congress, which held office during Obama’s second term, are ranked first and second, respectively, for the least productive Congresses since World War II), or by throwing Obama under the bus when attacking Trump (e.g., “It wasn’t appropriate when Obama governed by Executive Order, and it’s not appropriate now that Trump is doing it, too.”)
But is it even true? Or is it just another fictional GOP talking point that they hope no one actually scrutinizes? I decided to check out the American Presidency Project’s data on Executive Orders to see where Obama ranked just to have something to post and point to when this false canard continues to come up (now more likely to justify Trump’s actions than as a campaign argument).
The fact is, Obama wasn’t even close to issuing the most Executive Orders, not in terms of sheer numbers (16th out of 44 presidents), nor in terms of average per year to normalize for presidents who didn’t serve exactly eight years as he did (22nd out of 44).
Where Obama Ranks With Executive Orders
During his eight years in office, President Obama issued a total of 266 Executive Orders, averaging 33.25 per year in office. Contrary to the argument that he governed by Executive Order during his final two years because of a hostile Congress, he issued more during his first term (147) than his second (129).
That’s normal.
The American Presidency Project’s data doesn’t break out Executive Orders by term until Harry S. Truman (1945-1953), except for Lyndon Johnson. Without any exceptions, every single multi-term President whose orders are broken out by term has issued more during their first term than their second.
Maybe it’s because some Executive Orders are set to expire at the end of the outgoing president’s term, and the incoming president has to renew many of them even if they aren’t changing policy. Maybe it’s because most presidents were taking over for a president of the opposing party and had a fair number of policy reversals to implement. And there are probably a lot of housekeeping orders that every new president needs to enact but doesn’t need to re-enact for their second term.
Whatever the reason, it puts to rest the fiction that President Obama used an inordinate number of Executive Orders during his second term to bypass Congress. In fact, every president recorded since Harry S. Truman who served a full second term has issued more second-term orders than Obama did except for George W. Bush (whose total orders across both terms still exceeds Obama’s).
Executive Orders by President, Highest Annual Average to Lowest
Prez |
President |
Years in
Office
|
Party |
Total #
of Orders
|
Annual
Average
|
Years in
Office
|
32 |
Franklin Roosevelt |
1933-45 |
Dem |
3,721 |
307 |
12.1 |
31 |
Herbert Hoover |
1929-33 |
Rep |
968 |
242 |
4 |
28 |
Woodrow Wilson |
1913-21 |
Dem |
1,803 |
225 |
8 |
29 |
Warren Harding |
1921-23 |
Rep |
522 |
217 |
2.4 |
30 |
Calvin Coolidge |
1923-29 |
Rep |
1,203 |
215 |
5.6 |
27 |
William Taft |
1909-13 |
Rep |
724 |
181 |
4 |
26 |
Theodore Roosevelt |
1901-09 |
Rep |
1,081 |
145 |
7.5 |
33 |
Harry S. Truman |
1945-53 |
Dem |
907 |
117 |
7.8 |
39 |
Jimmy Carter |
1977-81 |
Dem |
320 |
80 |
4 |
35 |
John Kennedy |
1961-63 |
Dem |
214 |
75 |
2.8 |
38 |
Gerald Ford |
1974-77 |
Rep |
169 |
69 |
2.5 |
36 |
Lyndon Johnson |
1963-69 |
Dem |
325 |
63 |
5.2 |
37 |
Richard Nixon |
1969-74 |
Rep |
346 |
62 |
5.6 |
34 |
Dwight Eisenhower |
1953-61 |
Rep |
484 |
61 |
8 |
40 |
Ronald Reagan |
1981-89 |
Rep |
381 |
48 |
8 |
42 |
Bill Clinton |
1993-2001 |
Dem |
364 |
46 |
8 |
41 |
George H. W. Bush |
1989-93 |
Rep |
166 |
42 |
4 |
25 |
William McKinley |
1897-1901 |
Rep |
185 |
41 |
4.5 |
43 |
George W. Bush |
2001-09 |
Rep |
291 |
36.4 |
8 |
23 |
Benjamin Harrison |
1889-93 |
Rep |
143 |
35.8 |
4 |
24 |
Grover Cleveland II |
1893-97 |
Dem |
140 |
35 |
4 |
44 |
Barack Obama |
2009-17 |
Dem |
266 |
33 |
8 |
22 |
Grover Cleveland I |
1885-89 |
Dem |
113 |
28.3 |
4 |
21 |
Chester Arthur |
1881-85 |
Rep |
96 |
27.7 |
3.5 |
18 |
Ulysses Grant |
1869-77 |
Rep |
217 |
27.1 |
8 |
19 |
Rutherford Hayes |
1877-81 |
Rep |
92 |
23 |
4 |
17 |
Andrew Johnson |
1865-69 |
Nat’l. Union |
79 |
20 |
3.9 |
16 |
Abraham Lincoln |
1861-65 |
Rep |
48 |
12 |
4.1 |
20 |
James Garfield |
1881 |
Rep |
6 |
11 |
0.6 |
14 |
Franklin Pierce |
1853-57 |
Dem |
35 |
9 |
4 |
13 |
Millard Fillmore |
1850-53 |
Whig |
12 |
4.53 |
2.7 |
11 |
James Polk |
1845-49 |
Dem |
18 |
4.50 |
4 |
10 |
John Tyler |
1841-45 |
Whig |
17 |
4.3 |
3.9 |
15 |
James Buchanan |
1857-61 |
Dem |
16 |
4.0 |
4 |
12 |
Zachary Taylor |
1849-50 |
Whig |
5 |
3.7 |
1.4 |
8 |
Martin van Buren |
1837-41 |
Dem |
10 |
2.5 |
4 |
7 |
Andrew Jackson |
1829-37 |
Dem |
12 |
1.5 |
8 |
1 |
George Washington |
1789-97 |
Non, Fed |
8 |
1.0 |
7.9 |
6 |
John Q. Adams |
1825-29 |
Dem-Rep |
3 |
0.8 |
4 |
3 |
Thomas Jefferson |
1801-09 |
Dem-Rep |
4 |
0.5 |
8 |
2 |
John Adams |
1797-1801 |
Fed |
1 |
0.25 |
4 |
4 |
James Madison |
1809-17 |
Dem-Rep |
1 |
0.125 |
8 |
5 |
James Monroe |
1817-25 |
Dem-Rep |
1 |
0.125 |
8 |
9 |
William Harrison |
1841 |
Whig |
0 |
0 |
0.1 |
Interestingly enough, but not surprisingly, presidents tend to cluster with other presidents of their era. They tend to follow established norms until one of them breaks it and establishes a new norm.
If you’re interested in the full data set, including breakouts by term where available, I’ve uploaded the Excel data to a document sharing site.
In modern times (which I’m defining as post-World War II), the only presidents who issued fewer Executive Orders than President Obama were Kennedy, Ford, and George H. W. Bush — who each served half or less the time that Obama did.
If we get an annual average to normalize for comparisons, no post-war president has issued fewer Executive Orders per year than President Obama.
In fact, we have to go back about 125 years, to President Grover Cleveland’s first nonconsecutive term (1885-1889) to find a president with a lower annual average of Executive Orders than President Obama’s.
If you look at the first table or download the color-coded Excel chart, you can plainly see that President Obama is smack-dab in the middle, 22nd out of 44 presidents, in the average number of Executive Orders by year. In fact, he and President George W. Bush are the only presidents since the nineteenth century to be in the middle tier or lower for average annual Executive Orders. Since before 1900, every president except Obama and Bush 43 have been in the above annual average tiers.
Additional Findings
We see some interesting trends when we look at the color-coded chart in chronological order.
Modern Presidents Have a More Complex Job
The first six presidents are all in the lowest tier for the fewest average annual Executive Orders. In fact, the only other president who’s also in that tier is William Henry Harrison, who got pneumonia after giving his inaugural address in the rain and died 31 days later without issuing a single Executive Order.
But the president’s role and powers have expanded considerably since then, particularly as the United States has expanded its presence internationally. So it’s not surprising that every president of the 20th century is in the above-average tiers for average annual Executive Orders. Only the last two presidents to leave office have bucked that trend to be in the middle.
Wartime Presidents Issue More Executive Orders
The two presidents with the highest annual averages of Executive Orders, and the first and third for total number of Executive Orders, are also the only two to serve as Commander-in-Chief during World Wars: President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) during World War II, and President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) during World War I.
Of course, I’m not evaluating the merits or qualities of their orders. Not all were necessarily good ones — Executive Order 9066 creating “military zones” and authorizing Japanese Internment Camps comes to mind as a particularly bad one.
The Expansion of the Federal Bureaucracy
Interestingly enough, early 20th century presidents issued more annual executive orders than even modern post-World War II presidents. A presidential historian could probably go into more detail on this, but my hunch without examining the individual orders by year (not all of which are available) is that this coincides with the expansion of the federal bureaucracy under Theodore Roosevelt and subsequent presidents.
Under Teddy Roosevelt, the Department of Commerce and Labor was created in 1903, to be split into separate cabinet departments ten years later. A few years later in 1906, the Meat Inspection Act expanded the department’s oversight authority, followed the same year by the Pure Food and Drug Act that created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). President T. Roosevelt was the first president to issue more than a thousand Executive Orders, almost more than all of the previous presidents combined. The previous record of 217 Executive Orders was held by Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877). Pre-TR presidents averaged under a dozen Executive Orders a year.
Interestingly enough, all of the presidents between Teddy Roosevelt and his cousin Franklin represent the top tier of annual average Executive Orders. Not sure why Calvin Coolidge ranks third overall in terms of total number of Executive Orders, and highest among peacetime presidents. Perhaps Silent Cal had a lot of Prohibition-related work to implement? But that may have been more under Warren Harding, who places fourth for annual averages.
Of course, World War II doesn’t account for all of FDR’s orders. He spent two terms dealing with the Great Depression before war came.
Franklin Roosevelt Sets the Biggest Records
Franklin Roosevelt smashed all Executive Order records by a mile. Having the most isn’t terribly surprising, given that he was elected to an unprecedented four terms, dying early in his thirteenth year as president. No other president before or since has served more than eight years.
But tenure alone doesn’t account for his record-making 3,721 Executive Orders — almost two thousand more than Woodrow Wilson’s second place at 1,803 orders. Even if we normalize it by year, FDR averaged 307 Executive Orders per year, significantly more that Herbert Hoover’s second place at 242 per year and Wilson’s third place at 225 per year.
Of course, in addition to dealing with World War II, FDR also had the Great Depression to deal with. The New Deal to protect the most vulnerable involved another enormous expansion of the Executive Branch. Implementing the Emergency Banking Act, the Glass-Steagal Act that created the FDIC, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission, implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act and managing the Public Works Administration all in his first term may well have set records even before the second term passage and implementation of the Social Security Act in his second.
For the Record…
To summarize, here are some of the Executive Order record-holders:
- Franklin D. Roosevelt — Most individual Executive Orders (3,721) and highest annual average (307), followed by Woodrow Wilson for most (1,803) and Herbert Hoover for annual average (242).
- Theodore Roosevelt — First president to issue more than a thousand Executive Orders (1,081).
- Herbert Hoover — Most individual Executive Orders (968) and highest annual average (242) for a one-term president.
- Calvin Coolidge — Highest number of Executive Orders (1,203) for a peacetime president.
- Harry S. Truman — Highest number (907) and highest annual average (117) of Executive Orders for any modern day (e.g., post-World War II) president, and the only post-war president to average more than a hundred Executive Orders per year.
And just remember about President Obama’s record:
- Lowest annual average of Executive Orders since Grover Cleveland’s first term almost 125 years earlier (1885-1889).
- Fewest total number of Executive Orders of any president to serve any portion more than one term since William McKinley (1897-1901) 112 years earlier, and lowest annual average of Executive Orders for a consecutive multi-term president since Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) 140 years earlier.
- Pretty average in terms of total number of Executive Orders (16th out of 44) and dead average for annual average Executive Orders (22nd out of 44).
- Since Executive Orders by term have been recorded since 1945, the second lowest number of second term Executive Orders for any president to complete their second term, bested only by George W. Bush.
Mind you, I’m not saying that Executive Orders are intrinsically bad. Engaging in World Wars and implementing our social safety nets is pretty complex, and the implementing legislation alone would never be enough to address. It’s why we have an Executive Branch. But I wasn’t the one who tried to make this another silly talking point.
And the plain and simple truth is: the idea that Obama “went rogue” after Republicans took over Congress and governed by Executive Order to bypass an obstructionist Congress simply isn’t borne out by the facts. And if you’re skeptical, you can download my Excel data or check out the American Presidency Project’s data on Executive Orders to check my math.