San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Biden eyes dozens of executive actions in his first 10 days
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden, inheriting a collection of crises unlike any in generations, plans to open his administration with dozens of executive directives on top of expansive legislative proposals in a 10-day blitz meant to signal a turning point for a nation reeling from disease, economic turmoil, racial strife and now the aftermath of the assault on the Capitol.
Biden’s team has developed a raft of decrees that he can issue on his own authority after the inauguration Wednesday to begin reversing some of President Donald Trump’s most hotly disputed policies. Advisers hope the flurry of action, without waiting for Congress, will establish a sense of momentum for the new president even as the Senate puts his predecessor on trial.
On his first day in office alone, Biden intends a group of executive orders that will be partly substantive and partly symbolic. They include rescinding the travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, rejoining the Paris climate change accord, extending pandemic-related limits on evictions and student loan payments, issuing a mask mandate for federal property and interstate travel, and ordering agencies to figure out how to reunite children separated from their families after crossing the border, according to a memo that was circulated Saturday by Ron Klain, his incoming White House chief of staff, and obtained by the New York Times.
Daunting challenge
The blueprint of executive action comes after Biden announced that he will push Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion package of economic stimulus and pandemic relief, signaling a willingness to be aggressive on policy issues and confronting Republicans from the start to take their lead from him.
He also plans to send sweeping immigration legislation on his first day in office providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants. Along with his promise to vaccinate 100 million Americans for the coronavirus in his first 100 days, it is an expansive set of priorities for a new president that could be a defining test of his dealmaking abilities and command of the government.
While many Republicans privately will be relieved at his ascension after Trump, the troubles awaiting Biden are so daunting that even a veteran of a half-century in
politics may struggle to get a grip on the ship of state. And even if the partisan enmities of the Trump era ebb somewhat, there remain ideological divisions on the substance of Biden’s policies — on taxation, government spending, immigration, health care and other issues — that will challenge much of his agenda on Capitol Hill.
“You have a public health crisis, an economic challenge of huge proportions, racial, ethnic strife and political polarization on steroids,” said Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor who served as a top adviser to Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. “These challenges require big, broad strokes. The challenge is whether there’s a partner on the other side to deal with them.”
Biden spent much of the presidential transition trying not to be distracted as he assembled a Cabinet and White House staff of government veterans that look remarkably like the Obama administration that left office four years ago. He put together a team with expansive diversity in race and gender, but without many of the party’s more outspoken progressive figures, to the disappointment of the left.
“He’s obviously prioritized competence and longevity of experience in a lot of his appointments,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a national co-chairman of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign.
But he said Biden’s team had reached out to progressives like him. “I do hope we’ll continue to see progressives who tend to be younger and newer to the party fill a lot of the undersecretary and assistant secretary positions even if they’re not at the very top,” Khanna said.
Biden’s determination to ask Congress for a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws underscores the difficulties ahead of him. In his proposed legislation, which he plans to unveil Wednesday, he will call for a path to citizenship for about 11 million undocumented immigrants, including those with temporary status and the so-called Dreamers, who have lived in the U.S. since they were young children.
The bill will include increased foreign aid to ravaged Central American economies, provide safe opportunities for immigration for those fleeing violence, and increase prosecutions of human smugglers and those trafficking drugs.
But unlike previous presidents, Biden will not try to win support from Republicans by acknowledging the need for extensive new investments in border security in exchange for his proposals, according to a person familiar with the legislation. That could make his plan far harder to pass in Congress, where Democrats will control both houses, but by a slim margin in the Senate.
All of which explains why Biden and his team have resolved to use executive power as much as possible at the onset of the administration even as he tests the waters of a new Congress.
In his memo to Biden’s senior staff Saturday, Klain underscored the urgency of the overlapping crises and the need for the new president to act quickly to “reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration.”
Mask mandate
While other presidents issued executive actions right after taking office, Biden plans to enact a dozen on Inauguration Day alone, including the travel ban reversal, the mask mandate and the return to the Paris accord.
As with many of Trump’s own executive actions, some of them may sound more meaningful than they really are. By imposing a mask mandate on interstate planes, trains and buses, for instance, Biden is essentially codifying existing practice while encouraging rather than trying to require broader use of masks.
On the other side, Biden risks being criticized for doing what Democrats accused Trump of doing in terms of abusing the power of his office through an expansive interpretation of his executive power. Sensitive to that argument, Klain argued in his memo that Biden will remain within the bounds of law.
“While the policy objectives in these executive actions are bold, I want to be clear: The legal theory behind them is well-founded and represents a restoration of an appropriate, constitutional role for the president,” Klain wrote.
On Biden’s second day in office, he will sign executive actions related to the coronavirus pandemic aimed at helping schools and businesses to reopen safely, expand testing, protect workers and clarify public health standards.
On his third day, he will direct his Cabinet agencies to “take immediate action to deliver economic relief to working families,” Klain wrote in the memo.
The subsequent seven days will include more executive actions and directives to his Cabinet to expand “Buy America” provisions, “support communities of color and other underserved communities,” address climate change and start an effort to reunite families separated at the border.
Congress has been largely gridlocked for years, and even with Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, Biden faces an uphill climb after this initial burst of executive actions. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, a former Senate Democratic leader who worked with Biden for years, said the incoming president had an acute sense of the challenges he faced and the trade-offs required.
As leader, Daschle recalled that when things went wrong for him and he would complain, Biden would joke, “I hope that’s worth the car,” referring to the chauffeured ride provided to the Senate leader. Now, Daschle said as Biden prepares to move into the Executive Mansion, “I’m almost inclined to say, ‘Well, whatever he’s facing now, I hope that’s worth the house.’”