Why Presidents Use So Many Pens To Sign Their Executive Orders

In his first days as president, Joe Biden has signed more than thirty executive orders related to immigration, the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and non-discrimination against LGBTQ people, among many other issues.

Each time he signs a new order, the president takes a different pen from a wooden box placed within reach of his hand.

But why use a different pen for each measure, or even several different ones for the same order?

Pens with the signature of the president, Joe Biden, and the presidential seal.

Tradition in the White House establishes that the president, after signing an executive order or a bill, can give the pen to someone especially involved in the measure so that he has a memory of that historical moment.

"I think presidents want to share the credit with others who have contributed to the issues at stake," Mark Lawrence, director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, told CNN.

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When President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he used

75 pens

that he later gifted to congressmen who supported the bill, as well as civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, according to the White House.

That same year, Johnson gifted Jacqueline Kennedy with four pens used in signing the tax legislation.

The gifts were intended for the first lady, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, and her two children.

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The tradition was also upheld by President Barack Obama, who used

22 pens

in signing the Affordable Care Act (popularly known as ObamaCare), according to the White House.

Its first legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, required seven pens, one of which it gave to Ledbetter herself, a plaintiff in a job discrimination case that led to the measure's passage. 

How did they use so many pens for one signature?

Using

a different one for each letter

of his name.

"I have to use all the pens, so it will take a long time. I did not practice," Obama warned during the ObamaCare signing.

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Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Obama himself used Cross Townsend or Century II pens to sign official documents.

At the beginning of his administration, Donald Trump used a Century II pen, respecting the tradition of his predecessors.

However, he soon preferred to change it for

a

sharpie

.  

Currently, Biden uses navy blue Cross Century II pens with a gold edge.

No one knows for sure when the tradition began, although some experts believe it may have been during the Franklin D. Roosevelt or Harry Truman administrations.

With information from CNN and the White House.