A leading House Democrat is preparing a constitutional amendment in response to the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity ruling, seeking to reverse the decision “and ensure that no president is above the law.”
Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, sent a letter to colleagues informing them of his intent to file the resolution, which would kickstart what’s traditionally a cumbersome amendment process.
“This amendment will do what SCOTUS failed to do — prioritize our democracy,” Morelle said in a statement to AP.
It’s the most significant legislative response yet to the decision this week from the court’s conservative majority, which stunned Washington and drew a sharp dissent from the court’s liberal justices warning of the perils to democracy, particularly as Trump seeks a return to the White House. Still, the effort stands almost no chance of succeeding in this Congress.
Military must refuse illegal orders… I don’t think it’s that simple. Maybe if he goes on a one president killing spree, but ordering people to do illegal things doesn’t mean they are immediately going to do illegal things, especially when they are not criminally immune
Problem is not everyone in the military is a constitutional scholar. What happens if part of the military believes it’s their duty to follow the President’s order (since they judge it to be a legal order) while another part of the military believes it’s their duty to not follow an order (since they judge it to be illegal)?
This ruling is laying the groundwork for a civil war.
We’re not exactly more than a couple steps away from the SCOTUS saying that if you can’t prosecute official acts, then ipso facto it must also extend to those enforcing the acts.
I agree with this political stunt to point out the Trump Courts illegitimacy.
The words of the constitution currently have no value to the Trump Court. They just invented Total Criminal Immunity for official acts, and anything said to a government employee isn’t admissible in court. In a country founded on the idea no one is above the law.
This court is worse than the Dredd Scott court, they’ll just rule up is down and any amendment meant to undermine their decision actually affirms it.
For those arguing that Biden couldn’t do the funniest thing ever, I disagree. It truely doesn’t matter if they rule it an unofficial act. The purpose of this ruling is to get Trump out of his 34 felonies he’s already been convicted of because they used a lot of testimony from administration employees. So as long as that part of the ruling stands, Biden can still get away with anything. How do you convict with no witnesses.
The constitution even says the president isn’t immune and the federalist papers spells it out EXTREMELY clearly for any “originalist” to treat.
Honestly the courts should call out SCOTUS on lying and making an invalid ruling that the constitution does not give them the authority to make, then just acting like it didn’t happen.
I think it’s supposed to be congress’s responsibility to do that, but I guess there’s enough conservatives there to prevent that.
Edit: you would need at least 1/3 of senate republicans to agree to impeach a justice
During presidency at most, but all the history says presidents were supposed to be possible to prosecute for crimes after their term and SCOTUS ignored that despite the majority claiming to be originalists
Ballsy move. I support this
I think most people do but there is no way we will see an amendment come to pass.
At least it’ll put the GOPers on record rejecting it.
Why would they care? They’re proud of it. Their voters are proud of it.
I think the Democrats need to do a much larger PSA about what exactly this means. I’m not sure 100% of Trumps cult, or many moderates, would be cool with knowing that Biden right now could have his DOJ lock up basically anyone in the US, with no reason needed, and then pardon them. This would all be actions that cannot be questioned, or used against the President as he has full immunity to:
- pardon anyone for anything
- command his DOJ
Those are the 2 examples that the Supreme Court majority gave as examples in their “ruling”, and they gave both a completely made up unconstitutional condition of immunity that cannot be used against the President, or questioned/debated in any way. These 2 items are a gift to Trump in their hope that he takes the white house and will allow him to round up everyone he wants and put them in death camps if he wanted. He orders his DOJ to do it, pardons them all, and it’s all above the law with no possible oversight available. But I think if more people on the right knew that Biden has this power right now, BUT!, if some on the left get their way and they replace Biden on the ballot, and they win, that person would now wield this absolute power.
Edit - Extra words =(
The most effective way to get the word out would be a demonstration on Biden’s part. He could show how dangerous the power is and get rid of the traitorous fascists who created it at the same time.
yeah like go round them up and put them in a room. you gave me this power. now resign. all of you, or seal team 6 takes you out. boom. then Biden chooses the judges he wants, reverts the immunity and rolls back all the recent crap. fixes everything. easy. no more of a coup than the Nazis have done. but now it’s legal do it. for your very lives, do it, coz you guys are real real real close to fucking it up for everyone else too
Think if he did this to a supreme court judge, do you think they’d reverse the ruling? 🤔
They can if they support ranked choice under fairvote us
I propose Biden start having the military shoot those that oppose the amendment and see how long it takes to get it passed.
it will happen easily if biden wins. If the court majority becomes 5-4 liberal republicans will absolutely hop on board. Thats why dems should also float an electoral college reform and an amendment to ban gerrymandering. The amendment process is long and difficult ans honestly being just willing to go through the extra steps makes good headlines.
The supreme court has nothing to do with constitutional amendments. To propose one you need a 2/3 majority vote in both the house and senate (or 2/3 of states calling a constitutional convention, but no amendment has gone through this process). Then, it requires that 75% of the states ratify it.
There’s no chance the amendment will even get 2/3 of the congressional vote, much less 75% of states agreeing to it.
to change some of the rules around the court you need an amendment because they’re in the constitution (lifetime appointments, for instance.)
The 11th amendment was explicitly also added to overturn a supreme court ruling, so historically passing an amendment was not always a problem and if its a problem now maybe some effort should be placed into fixing the difficulty problem as well.
to change some of the rules around the court you need an amendment because they’re in the constitution (lifetime appointments, for instance.)
Or the President would need to use the new powers the court gave him on it, until the remaining justices decided to change the rules themselves.
Unfortunately you are right on this one. They couldn’t even get Equal Rights Ammendment passed and it was proposed in 1923. It got tossed around and talked about and got close to being ratified over the past century but ultimately didnt make it through.
Then in 2019 Alabama, Louisiana and South Dakota actually sued to prevent ERA from bring ratified when it was brought up again. That’s how much some states hate progress.
It’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out though. Will they kill it immediately or will it sit around in limbo for a century?
What we need is for a Democratic president to do something bananas and claim immunity. I bet at least the less crazy Republicans would suddenly see how that could be a problem. Maybe if Joe set one of the conservative justices on fire as an official act.
But seriously, they have no problem with hypocrisy so that probably still wouldn’t help.
Hypocrisy is a tool for the GQP
I think the Republicans would just use that as an excuse to do something even crazier at their first opportunity
Provide a free retirement ticket to Guantanamo Bay.
An amendment requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
It’s worth a try but don’t pin all your hopes on it.
And that’s only half the battle - then 3/4 of the state legislatures must pass it as well
I thought it’s an either or thing, as two different paths to possibly get an amendment passed, not that it needs both.??
You thought wrong, but I blame the school system. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution/#:~:text=An amendment may be proposed,in each State for ratification.
Upon re-reading, it looks like there is two paths, but both require two steps?
The first part, proposing an amendment:
An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, OR, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose.
Then the second part, ratifying the amendment:
The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, OR three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.
It’s understandable, as the proposal process DOES have two different paths (congress or states). But the ratification can only proceed via the states.
Finally someone with the fucking stones to call this fascistic slow crawl out for what it is, we can still stop this. If I’m a single issue voter who’s only concern is not wanting to “live” under the yolk of a tyrannical monarch (me, but not single issue), then this has my attention. The clock is ticking, I hate it too.
Ooh, I haven’t seen this turn of phrase in a while. I think you may want “yoke” over “yolk” here though.
he’s got egg on his face over that mistake!
And he’s too chicken to correct it!
Do we really have to crow about a mistake?
No, we have to chirp about it.
For Trump specifically it may be appropriate, though. The yoke of Trump’s oppression would almost certainly involve mayonnaise in it somewhere.
A constitutional amendment implies that the constitution doesn’t already cover this when, in its plain language, it definitely does. This provides an implicit concession that the court was right.
Don’t give them that. Pack the court and issue the opposite decision at the earliest opportunity.
Honestly at this rate, just start the fucking civil war already. I’d rather go hungry and fight than be pinned by fascists. They’re not playing by the rules, and they intend to do us harm. Fuck that. I’ve got faith in us anyway, we’re smart enough to not fall for their obvious horseshit and we’re smart enough to win if it comes to it.
I fear the civil war has already started, just without the shooting each other part. Although that’s kinda already happening too.
By that logic the civil war started decades ago
It’s not a civil war and I don’t think it’ll become one. The modern US isn’t geographically separated enough to have any sort of cohesive movement locally. There’s no north vs south playing out, for example.
Instead, what you have is a slow-rolling coup and social instability.
Just because our previous civil war involved a relatively simple geographical separation, doesn’t mean it’s necessary for a civil war.
The only thing you need is two (or more) sides with opposing beliefs about how the country should run and who should run it, and that said beliefs are strong enough that people are willing to use violence to ensure that their side wins.
Geography has nothing to do with it.
Coast vs interior
ADDING an Amendment to a Document that the Supreme Court is IGNORING is the PERFECT way to Fix this!
And also impossible because the Republicanazis would never allow it.
republikkklowns
The SCOTUS will rule the president still has immunity, again…they don’t care what the Constitution actually says.
Good luck getting 2/3 of the states to ratify it.
3/4 for amendments, actually.
I’d hope this ruling would inspire the need, but I won’t hold my breath.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Do you not believe they’re preparing an amendment, or do you not believe it will pass?
I think they’ll sabotage it or compromise it so much it will be meaningless like the Dems always do.
You believe it’s the Dem’s that do the sabotaging, and that they are compromising to…themselves? Interesting.
For some of their more conservative members, they’ve certainly done so in the past, but I’m pretty sure that @SeattleRain@lemmy.world is just talking about the self-defeating obsession that Democrats have with appearing non-partisan. Yes, they do need to compromise to an extent to get something through the house at the moment, but they have essentially self-sabotaged in the past when they had the majorities to not need to do so, yet insist on negotiating with the Republicans anyway because they hope moderate Republicans will give them credit for not ramming legislation through in a one-sided fashion.
This really only works when the other party is engaging in negotiations in good faith, which the Republicans do not. As a result, the Democrats give the GOP initiative on steering bills and policies as they like, winding up with compromised legislation that doesn’t please their actual base, while also not getting credit from the Republicans they’re hoping to sway in some sense.
For an easy example of this, look at talks about eliminating the filibuster earlier in Biden’s presidency. Manchin and Sinema made it a dead idea, but even before that, Biden has been opposed because of his obsession with reaching across the aisle in an age where trying to do so only serves to stop his agenda dead in its tracks. Rather than get their elbows out and bully the two hold outs into falling in line (which was supposed to be what Manchin was good for, at least. I kept hearing, “He disrupts things, but he falls in line when it counts,” but pretty much never saw evidence of this), they just shrugged and collectively let the agenda die or get neutered, because to do otherwise would not be bipartisan.
I appreciate one of the most concise explanations of that perspective I’ve ever read! This is actually the one I’d like to believe, but not the one I do. I disagree with the idea that “both sides are the same,” but I won’t go so far as to imagine Democrats are truly concerned with integrity to the degree that they’d sacrifices strategy. I’m afraid they’re just people, and people are all fucking stupid in their own way. It’s just some are fucking stupid and malicious.
I don’t think it’s necessarily being so concerned with integrity as to deliberately self-sabotage, but rather that this was a potentially viable strategy 40-50 years ago, and many of the eldritch horrors in party leadership, Biden included, just haven’t gotten the message that the situation has changed in the interim. Part of Biden’s campaign pitch was that he’s worked in Congress for so long and has the relations that would let him reach out to the other side to get stuff passed, and he just gets taken advantage of when trying to do so. The Republicans have long since moved on to a strategy of “Ram through whatever you can while you’re in power, and obstruct, obstruct, obstruct when you aren’t.” They generally aren’t concerned at all with what non-GOP voters think of them and their actions, which lets them just bulldoze their way through the process while racking up points with their base for being effective at advancing the agenda, regardless of how hypocritical/immoral they are in the process. Just see Mitch McConnell when Obama tried appointing a justice to the Supreme Court near the end of his term versus his response to Trump doing the same.
I would also say there’s just a fundamentally different level of at least the appearance of integrity necessary on the Democratic side, and Democratic voters are less willing to accept that the ends justifies the means. This is clearly illustrated just by looking at the fallout for pretty much any Republican having a sex scandal, versus it happening to a Democrat. In his initial scandal, Anthony Weiner didn’t even engage in a criminal act, having sent a 21-year old woman a sexually explicit photo. In less than a month, Nancy Pelosi had called for an investigation into it and he’d resigned his seat. In contrast, Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case and has had heaps of sexual assault and harassment accusations brought against him, yet the party of family values, good, Christian morals, and law and order is still completely behind him.
Say this gets passed, and it’s signed. Forget the higher bar for an amendment. It will get challenged and end up in front of the very same court.
The system has an inherent flaw that was not anticipated by the Founders. Smart, legal people need to get into 4D puzzle-solving mode.
This isn’t a law that has to be signed but a constitutional amendment that has to be ratified by a certain number of states.
this is a gimme. You show you’re willing to pass laws to reign them in.
The Constitution already guarantees this. SCOTUS is (as it is wont to do) brazenly defying it.
They should spend the rest of their natural lives in small concrete cells for the way they’ve deliberately and maliciously violated & stolen the rights of all Americans.
Not the first time. Or second. Or third. Or fourth…
This week
6 of them anyway. The other 3 seem to be good so far.
“Leftist” comrades: but muh both sides!!!
This will never happen. You can’t get enough states to agree let alone Congress. Getting an amendment passed is near impossible in this climate. The mere fact that a Democrat proposed it mean FOX will demonize it as a threat to america
True, but it’s still the right thing to do. At the very least it will force some members of Congress to clearly and undeniably declare themselves as supporters of tyranny.
It won’t pass, but it does show that both sides aren’t the same. It’s the correct move even if it’s just signaling.
Ranked choice voting can fix that issue as first-past-the-post sucks so bad.
Agree on ranked choice, but Prop Rep doesn’t have a good track record.
Use amendment 14 section 3 to remove most of the Republicans from office.
Get rid of the idea of judicial review.
Seems fair
The patriotic thing to do for Biden is to go on a crime using his newly found immunity. All crimes must be part of core acts or official acts. See how long that takes
Seriously, he needs to “no not like that” this shit so far that the Republicans have no choice but to reign in their bullshit.
How are they expected to prosecute the “Biden Crime Family” if they can’t prosecute the Kingpin?
I think this is unironically how they need to spin it. Convince the Republican base that this ruling is actually better for Biden than it is for Trump by repeating their own false narratives back to them - that the Biden Crime Family will get away with everything. Albeit, the things he could actually get away with are limited to what the court determines is an official act, and givent he current makeup of the SCOTUS it’s unlikely that they would side with him even if there were precedent, but he would be still almost untouchable under this new ruling no matter how you spin it.
Have a case against Joe Biden? Sorry, all of that evidence is now inadmissible in a court of law because it happened while he was president. Too bad, Republicans! Maybe if you were to… I dunno, pass a constitutional amendment that revoked that privilege. But oooooh nooooo, that would be horrible! Please, anything but that! All our nefarious plots would be undone and Biden would go to prison!
Dark Brandon is the hero this country needs.
People keep making this dumb joke over and over and over again. Biden isn’t going to do anything trump wants to do with this newfound immunity
Joke? We know that Biden won’t. But he should, if only just to show how farcical this ruling is. Maybe, start small. Make mail-in voting mandatory and the election a national holiday, via executive order. Then, officially allow all prisoners to vote. Next, make DACA recipients citizens allowed to vote. As long as he doesn’t ruffle the feathers of the capitalist class, eventually Republicans will be begging for a Constitutional Amendment.
“go on a crime”
I think I a word
“spree”
He can still probably get impeached, if it’s something congress doesn’t like
dems have the senate, he wont be convicted
What’s a “core act” or “official act”? Who decides that?
That’s the insidious part. People advocating for Biden to go on a crime spree are assuming that the Supreme Court is aiming to be consistent, and apply this ruling fairly to both parties. They’ve INTENTIONALLY left it unspecified what counts as an “official” act, so that any question that comes up just goes right back to them, and they can rule however they see fit. Also, people are assuming the Court won’t just directly contradict their own rulings, the moment it’s convenient. This entire thing just shows that the Court can and will give itself final say on any questions of law or policy, I.E. anything anyone in the government does. This doesn’t make the President a king, it makes the Court the king.
I’d say it makes a criminal President into a King.
It doesn’t give the president authority to do anything he wants. It just shields him from prosecution if he commits a crime.
Biden isn’t a criminal so he has no additional authority. Trump on the other hand is a criminal and makes no apologies for it. He will commit crimes if he’s President again. And Trump’s weaselly nature around the law means he’ll be able to find every crime he can convince people to commit on his behalf. It won’t matter if it’s known he ordered the crime to happen he’s immune. His henchmen can get pardons. He no longer would need to care that the pardon would nullify fifth amendment protections on compelling testimony since he’s immune from prosecution. And if he gets elected as a convicted felon, why would he care about things like legacy (as if he did before)?
People advocating for Biden to go on a crime spree are assuming that the Supreme Court is aiming to be consistent, and apply this ruling fairly to both parties.
The SCOTUS doesn’t have a DOJ or an FBI to arrest and prosecute anyone with. That’s the big catch in all this arguing.
If Biden seriously wanted to be a sassy bitch, he’d have Trump extraordinarily renditioned to a prison in Iraq and tried for bombing the Iraqi airfield that hosted the Iranian ambassadors.
The SCOTUS gets to pound sand, Americans can heal a gapping foreign policy wound between the US and Iran, and Trump gets a taste of living as an illegal.
But he’s not going to do that. He’s not going to impound Trump’s assets or freeze his accounts. He’s not going to treat Trump in any way like an asset of an enemy power.
Because he’s terrified of violating the Norms that dictate presidents can, in fact, do whatever the hell they want.
Also because Biden isn’t a criminal.
This ruling only benefits criminal Presidents, which is what Trump was and may soon be again.
Also because Biden isn’t a criminal.
The US has committing war crimes on a regular basis, globally, practically since the word entered the vernacular.
Biden still hasn’t closed Gitmo - a two decade running war crime - along with the rest of our torture prisons and black sites. He’s blatantly violated international law via our looting of the Afghan Treasury, our terror bombing in Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Iraq, our mercenary kill squads sent into Mali, Yemen, Congo, Nigeria, and Haiti, and our illegal occupation from the the Philippines and Japan to Panama and Cuba.
And then there’s Israel.
Biden’s continued criminal misconduct dating back to the McKinley Administration. Its just within the scope of his office, so the SCOTUS thinks he’s beyond prosecution.
When you don’t know anything about foreign affairs, international law, what a war is, what an occupation is, then sure, everything looks like a war crime.
But there is actually definitions for these kinds of things. You might want to look into them so you won’t continue to sound like a teenager.
everything looks like a war crime
Mass execution of civilians is always a war crime.
They’ve INTENTIONALLY left it unspecified what counts as an “official” act
That’s a speculation, thought.
Well he just needs to do exactly those that Trump did 😅
Yup this is the way to do it too. It needs to be part of the Constitution to override this “interpretation”.
