Agency machinery and intergovernmental relations covered directly: reorganizations, funding formulas, appointments and jurisdictional disputes.
An executive order directs federal agencies on how to carry out the law — it cannot create new law, spend money Congress did not appropriate, or survive a court that finds it exceeds the president's authority.
When funding lapses, Social Security checks keep going out while national park gates close — the difference comes down to which spending is annual and which is permanent law.
Sixty votes moves most legislation in the Senate, but not judicial nominees and not reconciliation bills — the filibuster's reach is narrower than the debates about it suggest.
The president proposes, Congress disposes: a year-long pipeline of budget requests, allocations, and twelve spending bills that routinely misses its own October 1 deadline.
Between the day a member drops a bill in the hopper and the day the president signs it, a typical bill passes through a dozen checkpoints — and most never survive them.