alt Hacker News> The EO contradicts the Constitution by declaring that agencies must refer to the President and the Attorney General for all interpretations of the law.
It doesn't say that. It says that agencies must follow interpretations published by the President and the Attorney General and may not publish contradictory interpretations. And even if it did say that, how would that contradict the constitution - which says nothing about who is supposed to interpret the law and charges the President, and only the president, with ensuring the laws are faithfully executed?
It does not say "only the President" in article 2. Omission has never been a basis to grant powers to an arm of the government in constitutional law.
Again, as a technologist it is enticing to attempt to read the Constitution and interpret law from first principles. However, if you want to do that, you must also consider relevant inputs. The common law system of the U.S. means that `HEAD` of the current law is actually determined by commits made by the court system. Several cases in federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have established the hierarchy for law interpretation for federal agencies.
If your belief system leads you to disregard these decisions or to find they're not valid, that's fine, but you are instead arguing about some theoretical "lmm states of america" instead of the actual United States that we live in.
Example case on the topic (it is trivial to find others; I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_v._City_of_New_York