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
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 (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.
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Yeah, they wouldn’t get it.
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.
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.
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
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.
It’s understandable, as the proposal process DOES have two different paths (congress or states). But the ratification can only proceed via the states.
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.
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.
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.
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
Biden could execute all members of the court and replace them with people who will agree everything he does is legal.
This is easy to get around.
Just start any order with “In my capacity as president, I decree that…”
*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.
Idk, can’t we fantasize about how Thomas could be hung like a black man?
We are dealing with psychopaths who are itching to murder people and they vow to NOT recognize a free and fair election. VOTE people.
I have to continue my streak of always upvoting Innuendo Studios.
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.
So what about the part after the vote when those who vowed to ignore said vote do so?
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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
The coward Clarence Thomas would resign. Piece of shit.
Sounds like a win to me
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.
Hanged*
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
Happy Cake Day, will you be my President?
Except Biden is an adult and not petulant child. Democracy will prevail. The voters will take care of it come November.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“Leftist” comrades: but muh both sides!!!
Not the first time. Or second. Or third. Or fourth…
This week
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
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
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 given the 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!
“go on a crime”
I think I a word
“spree”
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.
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 😅
I’ll do it
He can still probably get impeached, if it’s something congress doesn’t like
dems have the senate, he wont be convicted
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.
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.
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.
ADDING an Amendment to a Document that the Supreme Court is IGNORING is the PERFECT way to Fix this!
The SCOTUS will rule the president still has immunity, again…they don’t care what the Constitution actually says.
And also impossible because the Republicanazis would never allow it.
republikkklowns
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.
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
By that logic the civil war started decades ago
Use amendment 14 section 3 to remove most of the Republicans from office.
Get rid of the idea of judicial review.
Seems fair
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)
Good luck getting
-2/3-3/4 of the states to ratify it.3/4 for amendments, actually.
That’s even harder.
I’d hope this ruling would inspire the need, but I won’t hold my breath.
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.
Ranked choice voting can fix that issue as first-past-the-post sucks so bad.
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.
This is the way.
