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Executive Order 11867 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02) 📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations

Executive Order 11867—Delegating to the Administrator of General Services Authority to Issue Joint Funding Regulations

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Thursday, June 19, 1975
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3 min read (661 words)

Executive Brief • At a Glance

⏱️ 3 min read (661 words) • ● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate

The Administrator of General Services is designated and empowered to exercise, without approval, ratification, or other action by the President, the functions vested in the President by Sections 3, 5, 7, and 10 of the joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-510, 42 U.S.C. 4252, 4254, 4256 and 4259, respectively).

⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Private Citizens & Property Owners

Plain-English Translation & Framers' Constitutional Analysis

Early Statesman synthesis distilling legal jargon into practical meaning, statutory anchors, and structural constitutional impacts.

Signed by President Gerald R. Ford on June 19, 1975, this order concerns Delegating to the Administrator of General Services Authority to Issue Joint Funding Regulations. The Administrator of General Services is designated and empowered to exercise, without approval, ratification, or other action by the President, the functions vested in the President by Sections 3, 5, 7, and 10 of the joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-510, 42 U.S.C. 4252, 4254, 4256 and 4259, respectively).

Constitutional Assessment: This action represents an orderly exercise of Article II administrative discretion, managing the internal machinery and personnel of the executive branch without abridging the ancient liberties of the people.

Key Directives & Operative Actions

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The Administrator of General Services is designated and empowered to exercise, without approval, ratification, or other action by the President, the functions vested in the President by Sections 3, 5, 7, and 10 of the joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-510, 42 U.S.C. 4252, 4254, 4256 and 4259, respectively).

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The Administrator shall promulgate such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to assure that that Act is applied by all Federal agencies in a consistent manner and in accordance with its purposes.

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The Administrator of General Services shall prepare, for the President's transmission to Congress, the report required by Section 11 of the Joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974, which report shall be submitted to the President through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, at least fourteen months prior to the expiration of that Act.

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The functions delegated to the Administrator of General Services by this Order shall be performed: (a) subject to the general oversight and policy direction of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; (b) with respect to joint management funds, subject to the existing authority of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and (c) in accordance with the provisions of the Inter-governmental Cooperation Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-577, 82 Stat. 1098).

Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted

🏛️ Private Citizens & Property Owners
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The Framers' Constitutional Council

1787 Prism

Evaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.

⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight)
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"When the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which he and Congress may have concurrent authority."

— Justice Robert H. Jackson, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
JM

James Madison

Separation of Powers & Legislative Primacy

"Power is of an encroaching nature, and it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." — Federalist No. 48 (1788)

Madison would view this order with watchful scrutiny. Operating in the 'Zone of Twilight' where Congress is silent, each such directive establishes an administrative precedent that steadily expands the executive perimeter at the expense of legislative primacy.

Madisonian Stance: Vigilant / Cautionary
AH

Alexander Hamilton

The Energetic Executive & Unified Command

"A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government." — Federalist No. 70 (1788)

Hamilton would view this directive as the natural and indispensable functioning of administrative leadership. Without the power to coordinate agencies, manage personnel, and resolve operational ambiguities, the modern presidency would be reduced to an impotent figurehead.

Hamiltonian Stance: Defends Vigor & Dispatch
GM

George Mason

Bill of Rights, Due Process & 10th Amendment

"The president will be surrounded by flatterers and sycophants... and the great powers of the executive will gradually absorb the liberties of the people." — Cato IV (Anti-Federalist, 1787)

The Anti-Federalist prism advises continuous democratic vigilance. Even routine administrative directives aggregate centralized federal power away from town halls and state assemblies toward a distant executive apparatus.

Anti-Federalist Stance: Eternal Vigilance Required
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Five Measurable "Constitutional Friction" Dimensions

An objective audit measuring potential separation-of-powers tension against the United States Constitution and established Supreme Court doctrine.

⚖️ Discretionary Twilight Zone
52 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8

Legislative Encroachment & Purse

High Friction

Touches upon core congressional prerogatives: raises appropriations reallocation, tariff imposition, or statutory preemption questions.

Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3

Executive Scope & Faithfulness

Moderate Friction

Directs internal executive branch machinery, agency workflows, and federal personnel.

Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment

Federalism & State Sovereignty

Moderate Friction

Engages state and local partners in cooperative federalism programs.

Benchmark: Police powers and un-delegated responsibilities reserved to the States.
Dimension 4 • 5th & 14th Amendments

Due Process & Individual Rights

Low Friction

Focuses on internal governmental operations with no direct impairment of private rights or property.

Benchmark: Protection of private property, contracts, liberty, and procedural justice.
Dimension 5 • Separation of Powers

Youngstown Jacksonian Tier

Moderate Friction

The order relies on inherent Article II executive discretion, civil service management, or foreign diplomacy where Congress has neither expressly approved nor prohibited action.

Benchmark: Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
⚖️ Audit Synthesis

This order operates within Justice Jackson’s Zone of Twilight, resting upon concurrent presidential authority or congressional silence.

Weighted composite: Art. I (25%), Art. II (25%), Federalism (15%), Due Process (15%), Youngstown (20%).
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How to read these dimensions: Executive power expands whenever an administration acts without explicit statutory authorization from Congress (Article I), touches upon police powers historically reserved to the states (Tenth Amendment), or limits private rights and property without judicial process. A low friction score indicates strict concordance with enacted law; a high friction score highlights orders testing the limits of presidential discretion.
Total Words
661
3,944 characters
Estimated Read Time
3 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
11.1
High School
Language Tone Score
+0.02
Constitutional Neutral
How is this scored?
Text size:

Official Archival Text

View Source Document

By virtue of the authority vested in me by Sections 3, 5, 7, 10, and 11 of the joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-510, 88 Stat. 1604), Section 408 of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (87 Stat. 410, 42 U.S.C. 5048), Section 5 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (87 Stat. 359, 29 U.S.C. 704), Section 701(1) of the Housing Act of 1954, as amended (40 U.S.C. 461(1)), Section 728 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970 (42 U.S.C. 4531), Section 406 of the juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968, as amended (now Section 407, 86 Stat. 537, 42 U.S.C. 3887), Section 612 of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, as amended (81 Stat. 717, 42 U.S.C. 2962), and Section 301 of Title 3 of the United States Code, and as President of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: SECTION 1. The Administrator of General Services is designated and empowered to exercise, without approval, ratification, or other action by the President, the functions vested in the President by Sections 3, 5, 7, and 10 of the joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-510, 42 U.S.C. 4252, 4254, 4256 and 4259, respectively). The Administrator shall promulgate such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to assure that that Act is applied by all Federal agencies in a consistent manner and in accordance with its purposes. SEC. 2. The Administrator of General Services shall prepare, for the President's transmission to Congress, the report required by Section 11 of the Joint Funding Simplification Act of 1974, which report shall be submitted to the President through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, at least fourteen months prior to the expiration of that Act. SEC. 3. The Administrator of General Services is designated and empowered to exercise, without approval, ratification, or other action by the President, the authority vested'in the President to issue regulations with respect to joint funding by: (a) Section 408 of the Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (87 Stat. 410, 42 U.S.C. 5048), (b) Section 5 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (87 Stat. 359, 29 U.S.C. 704), (c) Section 406 of the juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1968, as amended (now Section 407, 86 Stat. 537, 42 U.S.C. 3887), (d) Section 612 of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, as amended (81 Stat. 717, 42 U.S.C. 2962), (e) Section 701(1) of the Housing Act of 1954, as amended (40 U.S.C. 461(1)),and (f) Section 728 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970 (42 U.S.C. 4531). SEC. 4. The functions delegated to the Administrator of General Services by this Order shall be performed: (a) subject to the general oversight and policy direction of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; (b) with respect to joint management funds, subject to the existing authority of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and (c) in accordance with the provisions of the Inter-governmental Cooperation Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-577, 82 Stat. 1098). SEC. 5. The delegations of authority provided by Section 3, of this Order, and the supersessions provided by this Section, shall not be deemed to affect in any way the exercise of such authority previously delegated to the Administrator of General Services. The following Executive orders are superseded: Executive Order No. 11784 of May 30, 1974, and Executive Order No. 11466 of April 18, 1969. SEC. 6. Section 1 of Executive Order No. 11758 of January 15, 1974, is revised to read as follows: "The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby designated and empowered to exercise, without approval, ratification, or other action of the President, the authority of the President under section 500(a) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (87 Stat. 390, 29 U.S.C. 790) with respect to the transfer of unexpended appropriations." GERALD R. FORD The White House, June 19, 1975.

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Referenced By Later Executive Orders (1)

Subsequent presidents who cited, amended, continued, or revoked this directive in later orders.

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Scholarly & Legal Citations

Exec. Order No. 11,867 (June 19, 1975), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-11867-delegating-the-administrator-general-services-authority-issue-joint.