It is how a president acts alone, with the stroke of a pen and no vote in Congress. Powerful, immediate, and limited: an executive order can do a great deal, but it cannot do everything, and the next president can undo it.
An executive order is a directive issued by the president that manages the operations of the federal government and carries the force of law when it is grounded in the president's constitutional or statutory authority. It does not require a vote in Congress.
Its power comes from Article II, which vests the executive power in the president and charges them to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. An executive order is the president instructing the executive branch how to carry out its duties.
It has real limits. A president cannot use an order to create powers they do not have, to spend money Congress has not appropriated, or to override a statute. Courts can and do strike down executive orders that exceed the president's authority, as they have throughout history.
And it is fragile in a way a law is not. Because one president issues it alone, the next president can revoke or replace it alone, with another order. This is why governing heavily by executive order can produce policy that swings back and forth with each new administration.
