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.
They can’t win without undecided voters who will hopefully see this and care
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
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.
They can if they support ranked choice under fairvote us
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.
*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?
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 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.
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 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
So what about the part after the vote when those who vowed to ignore said vote do so?
I have to continue my streak of always upvoting Innuendo Studios.
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.
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.
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 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
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
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.
Happy Cake Day, will you be my President?
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?
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…
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”
Dark Brandon is the hero this country needs.
He can still probably get impeached, if it’s something congress doesn’t like
dems have the senate, he wont be convicted
I don’t even think this ruling allows for impeachment, TBH. This ruling was pretty broad. As long as the act is done in an official capacity and it is within the president’s powers, even if only under certain circumstances which you can’t prove the circumstances didn’t exist if you can’t prosecute, then there is immunity. Immunity means no one can even investigate officially, much less bring a case. The only thing you can investigate is if you can prove that he did it while not acting in an official capacity, which sex is one of the few things that applies to and even that could probably be manipulated, or that the president has no authority whatsoever over the subject, but that’s pretty limited since he has full authority over the military and the entire executive branch as well as our nuclear weapons. I mean he can’t go into the Supreme Court, take the place of a Justice and issue a judgement. But he definitely can use the CIA to assassinate a Justice to change something. And you would only be able to prosecute the CIA agents, not the president.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Use amendment 14 section 3 to remove most of the Republicans from office.
Get rid of the idea of judicial review.
Seems fair
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.
Nothing pisses off congress more than having to do something and vote on legislation. Supreme Court made an enemy.
