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.
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.
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.
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.
As I was going to say- good luck with that one.
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.
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 read.
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
Yup this is the way to do it too. It needs to be part of the Constitution to override this “interpretation”.
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.
Coast vs interior
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.
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.
Happy Cake Day, will you be my President?
You realize immunity doesn’t mean declare what you want, and you get it?
Also It’s not illegal for Biden to say he is invalidating his immunity powers, it’s just meaningless. Now if he punched Stormy Daniel’s until she agreed to give syphilis to the court, that might be illegal acts that fall under his official duties.
Also, you need the courts behind whatever illegal thing you are going to do.
You realize, no…
Immunity here means declare whatever you want, and then mandate that the military eliminate anyone who opposes your new mandate. This “fun” hypothetical is a president invalidating their immunity powers and then having that decree reinforced by death, that second part is the illegal you want in this equation.
It’s done to “Save America”, so it’s an official act.
“If a president couldn’t freely do rapes, bribes, frauds and incite violence without repercussions, who would way to be president?”
- one of the two candidates for US President probably
- Declare new rules
- Use any method, legal or otherwise, to enforce said rules
- Claim immunity
Congratulations. You’ve successfully used immunity to declare whatever you want.
Immunity is for crimes which is explicitly about breaking the rules, it’s not about making up new rules.
And that’s why immunity was step 3, and making up new rules was step 1. Please refer to the steps if you have any more questions.
I didn’t ask a question. Please refer to the single sentence I wrote if you have any more questions about how your first two steps have nothing to do with immunity from criminal prosecution.
The idea that you actually need courts behind you is laughable. Power is enforced through the threat of violence, this is how law enforcement functions. Courts do not have soldiers.
Know who does? Commander-in-Chief, now with full immunity for any official act, like, giving orders to the military.
One could say perhaps the soldiers themselves would be afraid of prosecution and would disobey orders, since they don’t get immunity. Until the President pardons them anyway.
Otherwise only one last line of firm defense remains: the oath each serviceman takes to defend the Constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. That might make someone disobey an illegal order.
You need to have the military behind you and ready to do illegal things. When sworn to refuse illegal orders, this may not be so ready to go
There’s a quote from Andrew Jackson when he ignored the Court where he basically told them to enforce their decisions themselves.
This says that’s an apocryphal myth, but I’ll choose to believe it.
Would still end with him getting arrested/impeached though, I guess he could do it as a self-sacrifice thing and leave Harris to run
We are dealing with psychopaths who are itching to murder people and they vow to NOT recognize a free and fair election. VOTE people.
So what about the part after the vote when those who vowed to ignore said vote do so?
I love how people will open face admit that voting is clearly not enough and then be like “remember to vote owo”
I think folks need to start digging into a little stronger stuff than simply voting, lol
Need to start looking into further legal options beyond just voting.
I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety.
Iran was a secular, liberal state until almost 1980 when they (mostly legitimately) elected an Islamist theocracy; it could happen here
Soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. In that order.
If you’re just standing on your soap box unwilling to go to the ballot box, you’re probably not going to be willing to go to the other boxes that may be necessary. It doesn’t take that much effort to vote, and the other things take even more effort than that.
I think the main thing is, people have been banging the “just vote” drum for like 12 years now, and people are voting.
Trump isnt currently the president, nor has he been for nearly 4 years.
And yet the US’s constitution has never been more eroded. People DID vote, but it doesnt do jack shit when the individuals in question fucking shit up weren’t voted in
It takes a long time before a Supreme Court Justice retires or kicks the bucket, doesn’t it? It’s only then they get replaced and that’s done by whoever is in power at the time.
Democracy isn’t voting once and immediately getting what you want. Democracy is a process, it isn’t like ordering something on Amazon.
There are a lot of people who wanted abortion to be illegal. They voted in every election they were eligible to vote in for decades. And they got what they wanted, didn’t they?
That’s what you’re up against. If you’re whining about having to vote in multiple elections, remember the people that want to take away your rights aren’t whining about having to vote in every election. They will even vote for Trump knowing full well he’s not a religious man so they can get what they want. They just do it and they’re now getting what they want.
And that’s democracy. The people that vote in every election get what they want. The people that lack the dedication to do the same don’t get what they want.
So either vote or accept that abdicating your responsibility to others you’re allowing them to decide the long term direction your country will take. That’s the choice you’re making.
If you’re whining about having to vote in multiple elections Thats not what people are “whining” about.
Voting has nothing to do with the deeper rooted intrinsic issues, and voting will simply never solve them. Way more serious legal measures have to be taken instead.
I have to continue my streak of always upvoting Innuendo Studios.
The coward Clarence Thomas would resign. Piece of shit.
Sounds like a win to me
*hanged.
“Hung” is a… different thing, which the male justices might see as a positive.
They’re the same word now. Hooray language evolving!
Hung Mike Pence
Rule 34.
I’d fap to that.
Hooray Idiocracy!
Right? Like who the fuck doesn’t know language evolves? It’s literally conservative to not create new words and refine semantics.
I get it. Grammar Nazis were one of the few things poor and middle class racists had to feel superior to them.
It’s literally racist old man yells at cloud meme half the time.
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ASeriesOfPoorChoices 0 points 32 minutes ago
y u trying to axe me questions?
Wow, that wasn’t hard to bait the racist lol.
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Idk, can’t we fantasize about how Thomas could be hung like a black man?
Hanged*
Except Biden is an adult and not petulant child. Democracy will prevail. The voters will take care of it come November.
That doesnt take care of it, nor can voters take care of it.
Even if Biden gets re-elected, this ruling stays in play perpetually until someone undoes it, which requires the supreme court justices to walk it back after a period of time.
The only option is to use the newly granted powers themself to undo the granted powers.
It’s, imo, the only play.
Also this has nothing to do with being a “petulant child”, it proves the point of how the granted powers are over-reaching.
If they werent over-reaching, then he wouldnt be able to use them to do this. It becomes a forced move on the justices behalf.
They either:
a. Accept the powers are to overpowered and in turn are forced to, through the command itself, have to roll it back or b. Rule that Biden cant do that, which forces cementing an upper limit on what the powers can do (it establishes a baseline that you cant just use the powers to force supreme justice acts and/or to order people to die)
Either way, it either neuters the powers to some extent or completely nullifies them.
lmao
The average American has zero clue how anything in the government works, nor the interest in policy to actually understand what the policies their politician of choice are pushing do. The average American is so disconnected from politics it’s zero surprise that shitty politicians are elected everywhere regularly.
This isn’t an indictment of the people themselves but the society they live in that somehow incientivizes general laziness when it comes to civics
The republikkklowns have really simplified it though.They STAND for removing human rights, racism, facism and against anything good for the people. At this point you have two choices. Democracy or Dictatorship. I’ll take human rights and Democracy please.
My point was that the average American is simply too disconnected from politics to see this. The average voter is terrifyingly uninformed
There’s a difference between having the authority to do something and being immune to prosecution for a crime.
Biden doesn’t have the authority to issue an order for summary execution.
If he could convince someone to commit the crime of killing members of SCOTUS, and it was considered an official act of the President, then he might be shielded from prosecution for it, and he could issue a pardon for those that did the deed.
The ruling only benefits a criminal President, and Biden isn’t a criminal.
That was my thought too. This is sweeping and broad enough there’s honestly likely multiple ways to just use the ruling to undo the ruling.
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.
Biden could execute all members of the court and replace them with people who will agree everything he does is legal.
The ruling happens after the act. Who knows what justices we’ll have by then.
I, for one, welcome our new unelected overlords.
I, for one, welcome our new unelected , lifetime-appointed overlords.
I too choose this mans imprisoned wife
This is easy to get around.
Just start any order with “In my capacity as president, I decree that…”
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.
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.
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)
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!!!
Nothing pisses off congress more than having to do something and vote on legislation. Supreme Court made an enemy.
Ballsy move. I support this
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.
.
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.
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?
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.
The difficulty is that our governments and voters are so polarized that an amendment banning the government from drowning puppies wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting passed.
Half of the country wants the supreme court ruling to stay.
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.
Yeah, they wouldn’t get it.
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I propose Biden start having the military shoot those that oppose the amendment and see how long it takes to get it passed.
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? 🤔
They can’t win without undecided voters who will hopefully see this and care
They can if they support ranked choice under fairvote us
this is a gimme. You show you’re willing to pass laws to reign them in.
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.
The only way to destroy Trump is through a long series of viral propaganda documentaries.
Not good ones. Shittily produced ones that get hosted on Vimeo.
Or just order the assassination of Trump and anyone that supports him without trial, in the name of “national security”. Immunity, official act, etc. See how fast the justices rescind their ruling.
