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If At First You Don't Succeed, Sign An Executive Order: President Bush And The Expansion Of Charitable Choice, Michele Estrin Gilman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article analyzes whether President Bush's charitable choice executive orders, which permit religious organizations to apply for federal funds to deliver social services, are a permissible exercise of presidential power. Although Congress has enacted charitable choice provisions in some major statutes, including a 1996 welfare reform act, it debated but did not extend charitable choice throughout the entire federal human services bureaucracy, as the President's executive orders do. The core question this Article examines is whether President Bush's charitable choice executive orders constitute permissible gap-filling of ambiguous statutes under the Chevron doctrine or impermissible exercises of executive lawmaking under Youngstown …