Republicans Are Freaking Out Over A Three Year Old Biden Executive Order

President Biden signed an executive order three years ago designed to boost voter registration, but Republicans have waited until 2024 to melt down.

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Biden Signed An Executive Order That Everyone Forgot About Until Now

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Presidents sign executive orders all the time. They are usually directed at policy implementation. Some of them are big, like President Biden’s recent executive actions on immigration. Most of them are small and highlight an administration's policy priorities.

Since Donald Trump seems to have never learned this, it is a good reminder that executive orders aren’t laws. They can go away with the stroke of a pen from the next occupant of the Oval Office. Most executive orders float right on by, and the American people never know about them.

This reality is why the Republican freakout over a three-year-old Biden executive order is worth noting.

In 2021, to mark the then 56th anniversary of hundreds of civil rights protesters being beaten and gassed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, President Biden signed an executive order.

Here is what the executive order did:

• Direct federal agencies to expand access to voter registration and election information.

• Direct federal agencies to assist states under the National Voter Registration Act.

• Improve and modernize Vote.gov.

• Increase federal employees’ access to voting.

• Analyze barriers to voting for people with disabilities.

• Increase voting access for active duty military and other overseas voters.  

• Provide voting access and education to citizens in federal custody.

• Establish a Native American voting rights steering group. 

The executive order looked to expand access to voter registration and wanted to potentially make it easier for people with disabilities, military and overseas voters, people in federal custody, and Native Americans to register to vote.

Not too long ago, this would all be normal bipartisan stuff, back when Republicans and Democrats agreed that democracy was a good thing.

Here is how Donald Trump’s Republican Party reacted in 2024.