How many laws did the President present to Congress as opposed to executive orders?

1. Why the question needs a constitutional correction: the President doesn’t present laws to Congress

The framers assigned the power to make laws to Congress and the procedure by which a bill becomes law involves passage by both houses and presentment to the President for signature or veto—so the plain constitutional reality is that presidents do not “present laws to Congress,” they receive legislation after Congress acts; this distinction is emphasized by legal commentators and explainer pieces distinguishing statutes from executive orders ^{[4] [5]}.

2. What presidents can do instead: propose bills, urge legislative action, and issue executive orders

While a President cannot formally present laws to Congress, presidents regularly advance legislative proposals and policy outlines to Congress and the public, and when swift or unilateral action is chosen the President employs executive orders and other presidential actions—tools that have force in administration but are not statutes enacted by Congress ^{[6] [7]}.

3. How many executive orders have presidents issued — the measurable side of the ledger

Executive orders are documented and counted in public databases: the American Presidency Project compiles executive orders by term (noting comprehensive historical tallies) ^[3], the Federal Register publishes signed presidential documents and is the official repository for executive orders ^[2], and trackers like Ballotpedia and private law firms maintain contemporary counts and charts of executive orders for particular presidents ^{[8] [9]}.

4. A concrete example from the sources: large executive‑order activity, limited congressional lawmaking cited

Contemporary reporting and institutional trackers document high executive‑order activity; for instance, a compiled list of executive orders attributed to President Trump’s second presidency reported 225 executive orders in the first year ^[1], and scholars have noted that administrations often rely on executive orders when Congress enacts relatively few new laws on an incoming President’s priorities ^{[5] [10]}.

5. Why a direct numeric comparison—“how many laws did the President present… vs executive orders”—is not answerable from available reporting

Because the sources make clear that laws originate in Congress and executive orders originate in the executive branch, the appropriate numeric comparison requires rephrasing: one can count executive orders a President issued (data available in the Federal Register and compiled datasets) but cannot count “laws presented to Congress by the President” because that is not an act in the Constitution or the congressional legislative process as documented by legal and institutional sources ^{[4] [3] [2]}. None of the supplied sources provide a figure for “laws presented” because that concept misstates the constitutional roles ^[5].

6. Alternative viewpoints, practical implications, and political stakes

Advocates for strong presidential initiative argue that executive orders are essential for implementing urgent policy and that presidential proposals to Congress are a form of leadership even if not formal “presentment” ^{[7] [6]}, while critics warn that heavy reliance on executive orders bypasses the legislative process and yields policies that can be more easily reversed by successors or invalidated by courts ^{[10] [11]}; the sources document both the legal limits of executive orders and the political realities that push administrations to use them ^{[12] [6]}.