Early in the Reagan administration, legal advisers from all the agencies were brought into a meeting at the White House. Copies of an executive order from the new president were circulated to each.
They all assumed it was a first draft. So they all took out their pens and started marking it up, representing the interests of their agency concerning what a final draft should say. They were each shocked when they got to the end, and found that it was already signed by President Reagan.
The executive order addressed the issue of federalism, which refers to the doctrine that power, authority and funding should flow down to the 50 states. Previously, the trend in the 20th century had been the opposite, centralizing power, authority and money in Washington.
But federalism was so important to Mr. Reagan, that he was not interested in hearing what his executive branch agencies thought about it by circulating a draft to them first. His executive order commanded the agencies to follow the principles of federalism in every decision they made, favoring more power, authority and funding down to the states unless there was an overriding reason to the contrary.
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