(Although the incoming administration may be an exception.) This is especially important for Republican administrations, who normally seek office on the promise of less government, not more. Increasingly, accomplishing something in government means undoing policies you don’t agree with. Gerald Ford is omitted from the list.īut even looking at laws and executive orders doesn’t really solve the problems inherent in trying to quantify how productive a new administration is. **Took office after his predecessor’s death, so we’re counting the first 100 days of their full elected terms - in 1949 for Truman and 1965 for Johnson. *The number of orders signed by Roosevelt is taken from the FDR Library because the American Presidency Project - the source for the other presidents’ executive orders - omits many of Roosevelt’s. There are some exceptions, though - George W. On balance, modern presidents have issued more executive orders in their first 100 days than the second 100 days. Here are the number of executive orders issued by each president since FDR during their first 100 days, as well as the number of executive orders from other presidents they revoked. For some time, unilateral action during the first 100 days seemed to be on the decline, but it climbed back up under Obama. One of Jimmy Carter’s early executive orders was related to his pardon of Vietnam draft-dodgers. Bush and Obama issued memoranda reversing the previous administration’s rules about abortion funding and international aid shortly after taking office. New presidents can also take advantage of their unilateral power to direct the executive branch. Of course, legislation is not the only yardstick of presidential success. Her research concludes that presidents do enjoy a “100-day honeymoon” with Congress and that their influence during this period is demonstrably higher than later on in the administration. This is not fully explained by a public opinion bounce (most incoming presidents are popular) or by strategic choices about which bills to support during the first 100 days. Looking at the question of the “presidential honeymoon,” Dominguez found that when looking at bills on which presidents took public positions, chief executives do enjoy greater rates of success with Congress early on. That FDR was president during the Great Depression and had large Democratic majorities in Congress helped, too.Įven if first-100-day productivity has declined, however, it remains one of a president’s best chances to enact his agenda, according to work by Casey Dominguez. They identify FDR’s first 100 days in 1933 as exceptional, with not only an unusually high number of bills passed, but also more than one major piece of legislation (using some widely accepted political science measures of major legislation). The authors suggest that stronger subcommittees during this period “added a new layer of decision-makers to the legislative process, which potentially would slow down the pace of legislative enactments during the 100 days period.”Īs you might expect, whether the same party controls the presidency and Congress has a big effect on how much legislation passes in the first 100 days, as does the state of the economy (more laws are passed when economic conditions are bad). So, what changed? Early legislative productivity declined in the 1950s because of changes in how Congress works, according to Frendreis, Tatalovich and Schaff. For Truman and Johnson, who took office after their predecessor’s death, we’re counting the first 100 days of their full elected terms - 1949 for Truman and 1965 for Johnson. *Because of the unique nature of the 73rd Congress and Roosevelt’s first term, the number of bills listed reflects the period between March 9 and June 15 in 1933. Statutes at Large: Laws passed in the first 100 days PRESIDENT We looked at the number of bills passed by presidents, starting with FDR, 2 during their first 100 days using the U.S. Political scientists John Frendreis, Raymond Tatalovich and Jon Schaff found that while the FDR effect may have put the pressure on modern presidents, modern Congresses aren’t any more productive during the first 100 days. So how much do new presidents typically accomplish during this period? What standard should Trump be held to?Īvailable evidence generally suggests that presidents’ first 100 days have become less productive since the sprint at the beginning of FDR’s first term. 1 For every president since, the ghost of Roosevelt has loomed: Can they rack up as many accomplishments as he did? Donald Trump, who will start Day 1 of his presidency on Friday, faces the same expectations. He declared and then lifted a national banking holiday, signed bills that provided government relief for farmers and the unemployed, and pushed for new federal jobs programs. Roosevelt had already begun to reshape government’s role in the American economy.
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