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.
Ballsy move. I support this
.
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 (his DOJ). 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? 🤔
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.
I think the Republicans would just use that as an excuse to do something even crazier at their first opportunity
Hypocrisy is a tool for the GQP
Provide a free retirement ticket to Guantanamo Bay.
deleted by creator
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. Even a ban on courts creating “immunity rules” should be floated since immunity is something that shouldn’t be handed out as often as the supreme court does it.
The amendment process is long and difficult and 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?
I propose Biden start having the military shoot those that oppose the amendment and see how long it takes to get it passed.
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
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.
6 of them anyway. The other 3 seem to be good so far.
Not the first time. Or second. Or third. Or fourth…
This week
IMO the only valid move for Biden right now asap, is to use his new immunity powers to invalidate his immunity powers, as a display of self checkmate.
Declare the full supreme court under threat of death has to go back and redo the decision, and all of them must vote to reverse it and remove the presidential immunity, or be hung.
This of course means “if you dont remove my ability to kill you, you will die”.
Its the ultimate display of being handed ultimate power, and rejecting it through the power itself.
I cant think of any other move that makes sense really. It would be a headache in court but thats what the supreme justices get for making such a stupid ass decision.
*hanged.
“Hung” is a… different thing, which the male justices might see as a positive.
They’re the same word now. Hooray language evolving!
As far as I understand the decision (IANAL!), the definition of what constitutes an “Official Act” is left intentionally undefined, so in effect you can only claim this ultimate power if the courts like you in order to declare what you’re doing official.
This means, if I understand it correctly, king powers for Trump and nothing for Biden. They’d just rule everything Biden is doing as not an official act.
The ruling happens after the act. Who knows what justices we’ll have by then.
The coward Clarence Thomas would resign. Piece of shit.
Sounds like a win to me
Hanged*
Do this in tandem with Biden taking full advantage of the current immunity to utterly destroy the Trump campaign since it is a threat to democracy. We’ll get that amendment passed in no time.
And throw the corrupt justices in jail.
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.
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.
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.
House Democrat… Great, so it’s dead on arrival then.
Republicans control the House and they will never allow a vote on this.
Unless maybe biden threatens to use his immunity
Maybe my pig will shit out a gold nugget.
How do you know it hasn’t? You’d better go check.
It puts a magnifying glass on the people obstructing the fight against blatant corruption. Which is a good start, and really the only thing that can be done with a simple majority.
Biden could also just start assassinating the nay sayers until the point gets through, too.
It does nothing, same as the votes against the Trump impeachments. “Do they have an ® by their name?” Really all you need to know.
Well, Option B is looking good still.
As I was going to say- good luck with that one.
Yay! I will have a garbage plate in Joe Morelle’s honor the next time I am in Rochester.
(Although I do admit, I was probably gonna order the plate regardless)
This is the way.
this is a gimme. You show you’re willing to pass laws to reign them in.
Yup this is the way to do it too. It needs to be part of the Constitution to override this “interpretation”.
The patriotic thing to do for Biden is to go on a crime spree using his newly found immunity. All crimes must be part of core acts or official acts. See how long that takes
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.
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.
ADDING an Amendment to a Document that the Supreme Court is IGNORING is the PERFECT way to Fix this!
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.
For years the Supreme Court had a liberal majority and now that they don’t, they claim every decision they make is the end of the world and they want to lock everyone up and stack the courts. This is just more of the same
They just made bribes legal and made the president above the law.
Because the liberal Supreme Court largely supported democracy, while the conservative one isn’t even trying to hide its promotion of fascism. There is no both sides here
Reversing decades of settled law in multiple rulings is not “more of the same”. Lie to yourself, don’t lie to those of us with open eyes.
The Supreme Court hasn’t had a liberal majority since the 80s. The difference is that until the Trump appointments, the nakedly partisan political hacks were a minority on the court.
