PROVIDING FOR THE CLOSING OF GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1979 By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows: SECTION 1-1. General Provisions. 1-101. All Executive departments and agencies shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Monday, December 24, 1979, the day before Christmas Day, except as provided by Section 1-102 below. 1-102. The heads of Executive departments and agencies may determine that certain offices and installations of their organizations, or parts thereof, must remain open and that certain employees must report for duty on December 24, 1979, for reasons of national security or defense or for other public reasons. SECTION 1-2. Pay and leave for Employees. 1-201. Monday, December 24, 1979, shall be considered a holiday for the purposes of the pay and leave of employees of the United States. JIMMY CARTER The White House, December 11, 1979. [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 12: 11 p.m., December 11, 1979]
Executive Order 12179 ⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight Constitutional Neutral (+0.02)
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
Executive Order 12179—Holiday for Federal Employees
Executive Brief • At a Glance
⏱️ 1 min read (171 words) •
● In Effect
🎯 Primary Mandate
All Executive departments and agencies shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Monday, December 24, 1979, the day before Christmas Day, except as provided by Section 1-102 below. 1-102.
⚖️ Constitutional Footing
⚖️✨ Zone 2: Zone of Twilight
Concurrent Authority / Congressional Silence
📜 Art. II §2: Commander-in-Chief Supervisory Authority
🏛️ Scope & Affected Sectors
Armed Forces & Military Establishments Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants 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 Jimmy Carter on December 11, 1979, this order concerns Holiday for Federal Employees. General Provisions. 1-101. All Executive departments and agencies shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Monday, December 24, 1979, the day before Christmas Day, except as provided by Section 1-102 below. 1-102.
Constitutional Assessment: Scrutinized through Article II, Section 2, this action exercises the President's constitutional role as Commander in Chief. Early Framers recognized broad executive discretion in commanding military forces during conflict, provided it remains bounded by congressional declarations and respects civilian domestic courts.
Key Directives & Operative Actions
▪
All Executive departments and agencies shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Monday, December 24, 1979, the day before Christmas Day, except as provided by Section 1-102 below. 1-102.
▪
Monday, December 24, 1979, shall be considered a holiday for the purposes of the pay and leave of employees of the United States.
Constitutional & Societal Entities Impacted
🏛️ Armed Forces & Military Establishments
🏛️ Executive Departments & Federal Civil Servants
🏛️ Private Citizens & Property Owners
Policy Areas & Topics
🏛️
The Framers' Constitutional Council
1787 PrismEvaluating this order against the constitutional debates of 1787 and the limits of Article II executive power.
⚖️✨ Zone 2 (Zone of Twilight)
§
"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
"The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength; and the power of directing and employing the common strength must be under the direction of the single hand of the Executive." — Federalist No. 74 (1788)
Hamilton would forcefully champion executive discretion here. For foreign entanglements, commerce defense, and national security, deliberative assemblies are too slow and faction-ridden. A unified, energetic Executive exercising swift command is precisely what the Philadelphia Convention intended for national preservation.
Hamiltonian Stance: Strong Prerogative Support
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
📐
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
43 / 100 friction index
Dimension 1 • Art. I, §1 & §8
Moderate Friction
Legislative Encroachment & Purse
Administers commerce or fiscal programs requiring ongoing statutory delegation and legislative oversight.
Benchmark: Power of the purse, taxes/tariffs, and rule of law reserved to Congress.
Dimension 2 • Art. II, §1 & §3
Moderate Friction
Executive Scope & Faithfulness
Directs internal executive branch machinery, agency workflows, and federal personnel.
Benchmark: Faithfully execute laws enacted by Congress vs. unilateral decree.
Dimension 3 • 10th Amendment
Moderate Friction
Federalism & State Sovereignty
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
Low Friction
Due Process & Individual Rights
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
Moderate Friction
Youngstown Jacksonian Tier
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%).
ℹ️
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
171
1,055 characters
Estimated Read Time
1 min
@ 200 words / min
Flesch-Kincaid
12.6
High School
Text size:
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📜 Art. II §1: Executive Discretion & Internal Operations
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution of the United States of America, and in order to extend the time for the President's Commission on the Coal Industry to complete its report, Sections 1-401 and 1-402 of Executive Order No. 12103 of December 14, 1978…
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📜
Scholarly & Legal Citations
Exec. Order No. 12,179 (Dec. 11, 1979), https://executiveordersarchive.org/orders/app-executive-order-12179-holiday-for-federal-employees.
