How to Track and Monitor Executive Orders

by Lydia Stowe, FiscalNote

The right strategies and tools are essential to keep up with rapidly changing executive orders and proclamations.

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Monitoring policy isn’t limited to tracking legislation coming from the traditional corridors of Congress. In the modern era, presidents have signed an average of 269 executive orders while in office. Since his inauguration in January 2025, President Trump has already signed 97 executive orders — more than he signed in the entire first year of his first term in 2017.

The significant volume of policy changes coming from the White House means government affairs teams must carefully monitor executive orders and understand their potential impacts. The right strategies and tools are essential to keep up with rapidly changing executive orders and proclamations.

The Importance of Staying Updated on Executive Orders

What is an executive order? Executive orders are presidential directives that have the force of law, enabling the president to enact policy changes quickly and influence governmental operations without the need for legislative approval.

Executive orders are powerful tools that enable the president to enact policy changes swiftly. Their immediate impact on policy means that government affairs professionals must be adept at interpreting and communicating these orders' implications.

By staying informed, teams can quickly and accurately advise stakeholders, ensuring that strategic decisions align with the latest policy directions. These orders impact legislative agendas, economic policies, and regulatory frameworks, affecting industries and communities across the nation. The ability to promptly track and analyze these changes can be the difference between skillfully navigating challenges and being caught off guard by sudden policy shifts.

Staying updated on executive orders also fosters a proactive rather than reactive approach. It can help you anticipate upcoming changes that will impact your organization and community and prepare contingency plans to minimize potential disruptions. This approach increases your credibility by demonstrating a thorough understanding of the policy landscape.

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Challenges in Tracking Presidential Actions

Tracking presidential directives is no small feat, especially when the administration creates dozens of impactful orders in a few weeks. The sheer volume and rapid succession of new orders can be overwhelming, especially for teams using outdated tracking methods.

Traditional approaches to tracking executive orders rely on manual monitoring of news and government websites, which requires significant time. Once you become aware of an order, the work has only just begun.

Understanding and communicating the implications of each executive order can be complicated. This complexity, combined with the speed at which new orders are issued, often leaves teams struggling to keep up.

How the Right Tools Can Help

To keep pace with the rapid policymaking coming out of the White House, PolicyNote has an executive order tracker that lets you monitor the latest in your personalized dashboard. The Presidential Actions widget shows users the most recently issued executive orders, proclamations, memorandums, and fact sheets from the White House so you can be confident you won’t miss an important decision.

With the search function, you can quickly search executive orders by keyword and find the latest information without sifting through cumbersome databases or reports. This helps you avoid manual data gathering and focus on understanding which orders require urgent attention. Then, you can ask PolicyNote's AI Assistant to help analyze the executive order and its potential impacts, refine insights, and craft communications. The time savings mean you’ll be able to put more energy into refining your strategic response and focusing on the actions you need to take.

Government affairs teams need tools that let them work with speed and precision. PolicyNote equips you with the tools you need to turn hours of policy tracking into time spent focusing on strategy and action. Its AI Assistant helps you understand policy implications and can rapidly generate and deliver effective communication about learnings, risks, opportunities, and other impacts of policy.