Will GOP constituency groups wake up to Trump's executive order scam?
By Paul Waldman May 5 at 1:40 PM
President Trump is a man who knows the value of a good public performance to make something seem like a bigger deal than it really is. But a Rose Garden ceremony he conducted yesterday — not the one you’re thinking of, but another one — raises an interesting question: How long can he convince Republican constituency groups that they’re getting more from this administration than they actually are?
The ceremony in question was for the signing of a new executive order on “religious liberty,” which is code for “special privileges for conservative Christians.” But the order doesn’t do much of anything. In that, it’s much like most of the executive orders Trump has signed: a big show about how he’s giving a generous gift to some part of the Republican coalition, with almost nothing behind it.
Like many people who have followed this issue, I was expecting the worst when the White House announced that Trump would be signing an executive order on the topic. That was particularly true after the Plum Line’s own Sarah Posner obtained a draft version of the order a few months ago and reported that it “seeks to create wholesale exemptions from laws and regulations for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.” But when the final order was written, it turned out to be a whole lot of nothing. Instead of creating broad exemptions from laws and regulations for conservative Christians who want to discriminate against LGBT people or not follow the law on providing contraception benefits in employee health plans, it merely instructed various departments to enforce current law or issue guidance to other departments.
The one area that was addressed in detail was the Johnson Amendment, the law that prohibits tax-exempt nonprofits (such as churches) from endorsing candidates or directly involving themselves in political campaigns. While Trump promised a couple of months ago that “I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment,” this order does nothing of the sort — nor does he have the authority to do so on his own.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/05/will-gop-constituency-groups-wake-up-to-trumps-executive-order-scam/?utm_term=.c764133f64fc&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
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