From the Sunlight Foundation: What do weather disasters, new educational mandates and drilling for gas on state land have in common?

All of them can be regulated through the power of the governor’s executive order.

The power of the executive order is a hot topic at the U.S. federal level. In his 2014 State of the Union Address, President Obama touted the executive order as a means to achieve his policy objectives despite a perpetually intransigent Congress. The planned lawsuit by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, against the president partially concerns the use of presidential executive orders to delay the implementation of Obamacare provisions.

Similar to presidents, governors can also wield substantial unilateral power through their executive orders. In cases of inclement weather, state governors often use the executive order to declare states of emergency, authorizing the mobilization of the state resources to address the crisis. In response to the rollout of Common Core education standards last year by the Obama administration, several state governors issued executive orders to block the “intrusion of federal standards” into education, long a bastion of state control. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett, R, recently lifted a moratorium on natural gas exploration beneath the state’s parks and forests.

Governors and executive branches at the state level perform a variety of functions, including the management of state-level departments and agencies, execution of enacted state laws and administration of federal programs. Executive or administrative orders are the legal instruments by which governors conduct their duties, but the extent of the powers covered by executive order varies widely from state to state. Declarations of public emergencies, appointment of state officials and creation of executive branch commissions and agencies are often done by executive order.

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