Executive orders are just one of nearly 30 types of presidential actions that the president can use to do his job. All presidents have used them — they range from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to the executive order by Franklin D. Roosevelt that established internment camps for Japanese citizens — but they have become more prevalent in recent administrations as a workaround to gridlock in Congress.

As long as they are constitutional, executive orders have the full force of a law but none of the permanence. Recently, presidents have begun their first day in office by canceling some of their predecessor’s orders. For instance, Obama signed an executive order on his second day in office that revoked one of President George W. Bush’s orders that allowed the CIA to use waterboarding to interrogate suspects. Obama also set new ethics rules for executive branch workers on the day after his inauguration; the rule limits workers from finding work as a lobbyist two years after they leave a government job.