Defining ‘law’

A Sept. 11 letter (DACA falsehoods) criticized a national news service’s (NPR) website for misuse of the word “law” in reference to President Obama’s executive order regarding DACA. The author’s premise was that an executive order isn’t a law as described in our Constitution.

While initially not offended by this characterization of the word “law,” I was prompted to look in to it. I consulted two dictionaries and find that the foremost and common definitions of ‘law’ make no reference to the Constitution. Rather, to quote one such source regarding ‘law’: “(often THE LAW) the system of rules that a particular country… recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce” and “an individual rule as a part of a system of law” and “a thing regarded as having the binding force or effect of a formal systems of rules: what he said was law.”

Since executive orders are issued by the dozens if not the hundreds by every president and are binding as long as they exist, by any stretch of the imagination they are “law” and the website in question was correct in its use of the word.

Thomas Mosher

Spokane