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Renaming Departments
Probably the least-evil, least-illegal thing Donald Trump has done this week is rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Or rather, he issued an executive order saying it is henceforth to be referred to as the Department of War. Which raises some interesting separation-of-powers questions.
According to Wikipedia, the Department of War was split, by Act of Congress, into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force in 1947; both of those, and the Department of the Navy, were placed under an umbrella organization called the National Military Establishment. In 1949, by another Act of Congress, the NME was renamed the Department of Defense. That Act has not been repealed, so under Federal law it's still called the Department of Defense.
However, it's an agency of the Executive Branch, which means Trump is entirely within his rights to order the department to call itself the Department of War, change its stationery and Web pages accordingly, etc. Likewise, any other Executive-branch agency can be required to refer to it as the Department of War.
Which puts us in the bizarre situation that the entire Executive Branch calls it the Department of War, but other parts of the government (as well as state and local governments) can't do so because legally, there's no such department. For example, a Congressional budget appropriation bill would still have to refer to the Department of Defense, and I suppose court decisions would do likewise.
Of course, the simplest fix would be for Congress to pass a bill renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, to be consistent with what Trump wants to call it. Which would require Congress to pass a bill. As far as I can tell, Congress has passed 18 bills in the seven months since Trump took office, of which two rename a national park or refuge, one redraws the borders of an industrial park, and two amend the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. And one, slipping under the radar, is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cuts a trillion dollars from Medicaid, cuts taxes for billionaires by four trillion dollars, makes most court orders retroactively unenforceable, etc. etc.
The other problem with Congress passing such a bill is that even proposing it might be taken as a statement that some things actually need to be done by Congress -- Trump can't do them all by himself -- and few Republicans in Congress want to be on record making such a statement.
According to Wikipedia, the Department of War was split, by Act of Congress, into the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force in 1947; both of those, and the Department of the Navy, were placed under an umbrella organization called the National Military Establishment. In 1949, by another Act of Congress, the NME was renamed the Department of Defense. That Act has not been repealed, so under Federal law it's still called the Department of Defense.
However, it's an agency of the Executive Branch, which means Trump is entirely within his rights to order the department to call itself the Department of War, change its stationery and Web pages accordingly, etc. Likewise, any other Executive-branch agency can be required to refer to it as the Department of War.
Which puts us in the bizarre situation that the entire Executive Branch calls it the Department of War, but other parts of the government (as well as state and local governments) can't do so because legally, there's no such department. For example, a Congressional budget appropriation bill would still have to refer to the Department of Defense, and I suppose court decisions would do likewise.
Of course, the simplest fix would be for Congress to pass a bill renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War, to be consistent with what Trump wants to call it. Which would require Congress to pass a bill. As far as I can tell, Congress has passed 18 bills in the seven months since Trump took office, of which two rename a national park or refuge, one redraws the borders of an industrial park, and two amend the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. And one, slipping under the radar, is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that cuts a trillion dollars from Medicaid, cuts taxes for billionaires by four trillion dollars, makes most court orders retroactively unenforceable, etc. etc.
The other problem with Congress passing such a bill is that even proposing it might be taken as a statement that some things actually need to be done by Congress -- Trump can't do them all by himself -- and few Republicans in Congress want to be on record making such a statement.
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I kind of like that the congressional budget must use the correct name, and the executive branch gets to decide whether to die on the hill of a new name or get funding. Popcorn time!
Nonetheless, I'm appalled at how far our government has regressed in just these few months, with three and a half years yet to go. :-(