If the Democrats don’t win a landslide, this goes nowhere.
Vote!!!
It’s not gonna happen, we need 2/3rds of states, but when republicans block it, it sends a clear message who the wannabe autocrats are.
it sends a clear message
eye-roll Need to stop pretending that Republicans are just being cutesy and cryptic, and recognize that large parts of the country fully endorse a fascist federal government.
Let them vote against it. Let them vote against all the popular ideas and see where that gets them.
See where it gets them? It gets them right where we are now, with them on the precipice of turning the country over into a russian style dictatorship with billionaire oligarchs and their bought politicians running little fiefdoms?
Have you not being paying attention to how fucking enthusiastic a not-insignificant chunk of the country is for fascism and enshrining their teams power as dominate and eternal?
tldr: Stop being blind in your tolerance. Start calling everything you see that is unjust and malicious out. Your freedom probably depends on it
Most republicans I know believe that their party, like their country and their religion, needs to be followed blindly; if their party supports it, it’s good, and if their party rejects it, it’s bad. End of story. No more thought will, or should, be put into it.
The people who go on and on about how America is the best because “freedom” are now working out whatever mental gymnastics they need to perform to justify voting for the man who said if you vote for him you won’t need to vote anymore. They already chose to support Trump and his party - nothing they say or do anymore will change that decision.
It seems like republican voters deeply believe that their way is the “right” way and they’re willing to do anything to impose it on the nation in perpetuity.
I’m sure most aren’t really comfortable with trump, but they’re willing to overlook his rough edges if he can establish a republican government.
It’s an Authoritarian Personality Disorder. You are correct, and I have not found an effective means of countering it, given the material conditions we find ourselves in.
Let them vote against all the popular ideas and see where that gets them.
That only works if people are paying attention.
Increasingly, the general public are checking out of paying attention to the political circus.
They have been doing this for decades… sure, there was a time people just didn’t understand it. But they literally voted against cheaper insulin.
I am not saying these bills should not be presented even if the Republicans will kill them, but the expectation that Republicans voting against thing that benefit the working class would eventually make their base shrink is a complete fallacy at this point.
An amendment needs to be proposed by 2/3 of both houses of congress, or 2/3 of states can call a convention where any amendments can be proposed. Then an amendment needs to get 3/4 of states to ratify.
If I’m reading this right, that is.
So we need 2/3 of both houses of congress and 3/4 of state legislatures to agree. A large hurdle, but doable and necessary for our democracy. We’ve done it before, and now is a time in our history begging for amendments/reform.
You’re optimistic about it being doable. Maybe if it was put to a vote in each of the states or maybe if it wasn’t currently relevant to one party’s head. But not put to a vote by the state legislatures. There only needs to be 13 state legislatures that say no to keep it from happening. The last time we passed an amendment was over 30 years ago and was just not allowing congress to give themselves a pay raise in the same term. Not a super contentious thing like presidential immunity when it the previous republican president is facing several criminal trials.
I didn’t say I was optimistic, just that we are at a time in our history begging for amendments and reform.
It needs 2/3 of both houses to be proposed by Congress, but Congress has no power over ratification. The end of Article V is simply saying that Congress may propose one of the modes of ratification (by state legislatures or convention), not that Congress can unilaterally ratify an amendment.
There are still other options if this goes nowhere. If they have the numbers, they can impeach the sitting justices and/or pack the court with more.
Also, it’s possible that if the republicans see a string of back-to-back democrat presidents, maybe presidential immunity would be less popular. Especially after trump finally kicks the bucket.
Of course none of this matters if the dems don’t win in November.
As if the Republican party isn’t already screaming that message loud and proud on the daily
As if America ever learns anything from "clear messages’ that are in fact painfully clear and obvious.
In another thread someone suggested we resize the court first, as an incentive for Republican states to embrace regulation and pass the amendment. Still need the supermajority, but it’s a great carrot/stick approach to get the job done or at least leave us in a good spot for a while if they want to be stubborn.
Agreed! Them voting Against this is a MUCH clearer Message then them Literally saying You Won’t Need To Vote Ever Again Because The Fix Will Be In!
Absolutely right but it does also make this a more concrete election issue. This sets up Harris clearly for reform and makes a strong argument against Trump’s criminality and the corruption he spreads.
It won’t happen even if the Dems do win in a landslide. There are always enough Manchins in the Senate to keep anything meaningful from actually getting passed.
This is huge
Is it? I am ready to believe it is, but i guess i was hoping headlines about passing the court
Good. We needed to hear this. How much can be done, we shall see, but a plan is a great starting point.
Vote but I think it would be absolutely brilliant if Biden uses the immunity to arrest and remove every single person trying to strip our country away. Lock up every last one, including any corrupt judges.
I think it would be absolutely brilliant if Biden uses the immunity to arrest and remove
He’s not doing this and people need to stop wish-casting that he would in order to cope with the party’s refusal to oppose Republican policy.
I’m still voting for Biden. He’s still my favorite write-in candidate for November. Make wish-casting great again. /s
This isn’t funny. Don’t perpetuate this, even as an /s
Vote for the nominated Democratic candidate, against trump. Period.
Talk about wish-casting.
If I understood the ruling correctly, that “immunity” is the supreme court saying the president is immune for “official acts” - and they get to decide what those are. This is not immunity for Biden, it’s a fascist coup happening in slow motion.
Then grab the coup by the horns and put it down like diseased cattle.
I have doubts a constitutional amendment will pass, but hopefully there are other avenues to enact this plan.
The Supreme Court gave him an avenue, an official act by executive order. Remove 3 conservative justices reducing the Court to it’s original number of 6.
The Court’s decision just removes criminal liability for the President for such official acts. It does not render them legal or proper.
TokenBoomer didn’t say how the Justices were to be removed.
👿
Edit: I am not advocating for violence………………. . . yet.
Is it technically murder if the president orders it?
Its assassination which to me, sounds like an official act.
Which, per the Justices in question, is totally legal and cool if the President does it.
Let the 6 member court deliberate this executive decision. Democrats need to stop asking for permission. Republicans don’t. They act, then apologize for overstepping. Democrats need to stop being defensive and start being offensive.
They haven’t apologized in a long time
The Democrats should have taken the gloves off after McConnell refused to confirm Garland and ended the filibuster.
The Democrats should have taken the gloves off after McConnell refused to confirm Garland and ended the filibuster.
since the Democrats don’t have a time machine, I just want them to learn from their mistakes. They’re still using the same strategy of when they go low, we go high -and we lose.
Doesn’t removing criminal liability basically make it legal?
No, there are a lot of things that are not legal but also not criminal. Here, the difference is whether or not the President is empowered to take such action. Similarly, the President cannot enact a new tax law or bind the nation to a treaty as he lacks the legal authority to do so, but attempting to do so wouldn’t (under some scenarios) be an otherwise criminal act.
Fair point, it’s not a de facto legalization. However, I have to question the intent behind allowing for such varied interpretations of presidential immunity. Confining it to official or unofficial leaves an insane amount of wiggle room, when they could have decided to allow for real scrutiny within the context of an action and whose purposes it actually serves.
As it stands, a conversation between a president and election officials, regardless of context, is an official act. Presidents are allowed to talk to people in an official capacity, so regardless of what is said during those conversations, it’s completely fine? Why not provide any guidelines on what constitutes an official act? It’s just too broad for anything other than a “I’m sure people will just be cool” acceptance, which is exactly why we find ourselves in this situation to begin with.
(Edited to add what I’m told is called a “para-graph”)
Let’s see SCOTUS enforce a ruling.
Also, the reality is these rulings are only when it benefits whomever pays them the most.
You’d have to convince Putin and a lot of trillion dollar corps that own these justices first. Which seems very unlikely.
He could sacrifice himself for the greater good and commit illegal acts to wipe the SCOTUS and start again with people that will hold him accountable for his illegal acts. He has a unique opportunity that will go away either through reform or the dismantling of US democracy. Either way, the opportunity is now or never
The scorched earth approach would cause problems for Kamala’s campaign. After the election however there are a couple months where Biden is still in charge and could go scorched earth with impunity (which would also demonstrate how stupid that system is as well).
Oh really? I’d now like to see you throughout historical events right before they happened, expressing your doubts as if you uniquely had them… “I don’t know, guys…”
Yes, that’s the point. Nobody has 100% faith that this is a rubber stamp, that’s not the point.
First, the announcement itself from a sitting American president is historic and important, second, it keeps a hard focus on the corrupt conservative frauds and illegitimacy of this current court. Those are the victories, the actual congressional amendment (a process designed to be difficult in a process that demands consensus) is and always was the long shot that could happen.
I don’t get the appointing of a new judge every two years for 18 years. Does that mean that the courts are gonna like fill up with a bunch of justices or is it just every two years you can replace an empty seat?
To expand on what AirBreather said, the new justices would have an 18 year term, replacing one every two years.
this is actually a reasonable solution I pushed a while back. Basically, it would keep the aspect of the court changing slowly (an intentional feature,) but it would still let it change. Further, each president gets two SCOTUS peeps at predictable times, removing the ability of the senate to play games and game the system. (or installing relatively young judges who will serve for forty+ years.)
I was pleasantly surprised to see him propose this too. I’ve heard a lot of people online throw around the idea. I’m glad it’s getting more mainstream attention too.
Not to mention, this also ensures the court is keeping up with modern society. You won’t have 80 year old judges using outdated interpretations
Exactly. You get steady change lacking wild swings, and no president will have the ability to change the majority in a single term (unless it was already close to that.)
Once the lifetime appointees have been dealt with in whatever way, the Court will have nine members, each appointed one after the other with two years in between, with the next-most-senior member’s term expiring every two years to keep the number stable at nine.
Once the lifetime appointees have been dealt with
This sounds specially more ominous now that the President is untouchable.
The same dark comedy thought crossed my mind!
I expect they might retire and replace the existing judges, one every two years, in order of length of time already served. This would make it so they start this new system off already having 9 seats filled.
— Take care of them.
…
— How are the justices?
— Six feet under.
— What?! I told you to take care of them!
— Right, and I took “care” of them.
I’m curious to see how they plan to transition to that system. Force one of the current Justices out every two years? If so, which one? Or do they plan on just starting fresh? Then who gets ousted in two years? To be clear, I fully support this plan, I’m just curious how the transition will go if/when this passes.
Force one of the current Justices out every two years? If so, which one?
Presumably the currently longest serving justice.
And then we get chief justice Thomas for 2 years, followed by 2 years of chief justice Alito…
I wouldn’t be surprised if they allow the sitting justices to continue their life appointment
How many justices do you think there will be if there’s a new one appointed each two years and they are term-limited to 18 years?
Nine
As I understood how this would work is the next appointment will be “term limited”. After 18 years they would assume senior justice status. This will do two things. First, allow for someone new to be appointed. Second, ensure they don’t run afoul of the lifetime appointment status.
Under the senior status, the most recent to leave the court can step in again as a sub after a death pending installation of a new “starter”.
So in one way yes, there will be many more justices… But there will be a starting 9, and more in a pseudo retirement. This will be a long road to get there, as they need to wait for the first vacancy, and then the next, etc.
I’m a bit skeptical on the first bullet point: while I’m all for an amendment to the US constitution that spells out in detail the limits on presidential authority, it’s still an amendment that has to get passed. That means that it needs a 2/3rds majority in both the House and the Senate, or it needs to be supported by 2/3rds of the state legislatures. I don’t think there’s any way in hell that Biden’s going to be able to get that through while the prospect of Trump regaining the presidency is on the horizon. At the moment, 47% of the US Senate is Democrat, with 4% caucusing with the Democrats most of the time, 49% of the US House is Democrat, and 46% of State Governors are Democrat. While it’s not 100% certain that all Republicans would vote along party lines, I’m reasonably certain that all Republicans would vote along party lines, which means a constitutional amendment is dead in the water.
Now, if Harris wins the presidency, there’s a good chance that the Republicans would be willing to vote for an amendment to curtail presidential authority. But right now? Nuh uh. Not gonna happen. As for the other two bullet points, they’re certainly more possible right now than a constitutional amendment, but still unlikely. Dems don’t have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and I’m certain that the Republicans would filibuster the shit out of that. Even if that wasn’t the case, there’s no way it’d pass the House. Best case scenario, Harris wins, with a large majority in both houses, and is able to push some legislation along these lines through.
Edit: changed language from “ratified by 2/3rds of the states” to “supported by 2/3rds of the state legislatures”.
All Biden needs to do is threaten to use his newfound powers to meddle in the red states’ crusade against lgbtq.
I mean, thanks to Obama, the president has the authority to kill any US citizen they deem as a threat. The ACLU brought a case against the government about that, but that case was dismissed on procedural grounds, so it’s still constitutionally untested. But regardless of it being tested, there is precedent for it, thanks to Obama’s murder of Anwar Al-Awlaqi. And since the precedent says that the murder by the executive branch of any US citizen it deems a threat is kosher, well that would fall pretty nicely under the heading of “official acts of office” that this latest supreme court case showed would be absolutely immune from prosecution.
So I guess the question is: does Biden feel like murdering a bunch of citizens?
Wasn’t that guy fighting for ISIS? Like actively engaged in the fight against US forces and killed in a targeted drone strike?
I’m all for Biden using his newfound kinghood to say, lock congress in their chamber until they vote the right way, but I don’t think your example is comparable.
He was alleged to be the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula. But, of course, he was a US citizen, and the drone strike happened in Yemen, a country we were not at war with. So it raised a significant number of ethical and procedural questions. Also, we killed his 16-year-old son (who was also a US citizen) with a drone strike several days later, also in Yemen.
but I don’t think your example is comparable.
Well, that’s the thing. Precedent is a tricky mistress. Sure, Obama had what he considered very good reasons for crossing that line, but it set a precedent that any subsequent president could follow. It’s like how George Washington set the precedent for presidential pardons by pardoning two men who were sentenced to be executed for protesting a tax on whiskey, and then a couple hundred years later, Trump was just straight up selling pardons to people for two million bucks a pop.
The point is, what seems reasonable when justified by a good president could easily be turned into something horrible by a bad president. The precedent set by Obama is probably not going to be as narrow as: “the US president is free to order the killing by drone strike of any US citizen who US intelligence agencies believe is a high ranking member in a terrorist organization (or a member of their family), as long as they are currently located in a middle eastern country”, just like the precedent set by Washington wasn’t: “The US president is free to pardon anybody who is accused of protesting a tax on whiskey”.
They’re not citizens if they’re Nazis, but murder isn’t the answer, let’s grab one of the for profit prisons the right so loves to build, in the middle of Oklahoma or Missouri and invite the traitors to stay a good long time.
Maybe he could change the rules of voting in congress from “Yea/Nay” to “Yes, harder daddy/No, don’t fucking stop daddy” that’s probably within the role of his office.
Fun fact, it doesn’t have to be an amendment - it can just be a normal law. The check on judiciary is if Congress and the President both say, " you got it wrong SCOTUS" and pass a law that specifically says things are different.
Now I’m basing that on my 9th grade civics knowledge which could be wrong… But I thought that’s why there were pushes for contraceptive laws post gutting of abortion rights. Basically telling the high court, this is what we’re doing now.
That’s a bit trickier, though, because SCOTUS already ruled on this, which means that their fucked ruling is now precedent. So any future challenges to a law passed by congress would be interpreted with that precedent in mind. If the composition of the supreme court changes, they could reverse their earlier rulings, but it’s much less certain of an outcome than if there was an amendment to the constitution guiding future decisions.
Laws override precedent. The court’s job is explicitly to interpret the laws made by congress. Precedent is simply the way that previous courts have interpreted the laws at the time. If the relevant laws to the case haven’t changed since the previous case, that is where precedent comes in. If there are new laws written by congress then those are more important than precedent.
Another user brought up the idea that they might still try to rule the new law unconstitutional but that would be a much harder bar to achieve legitimately since the constitution is intentionally rather succinct. Of course if the court is corrupt and no one actually challenges their power I suppose they could say anything they want- precedent overrules laws, anything they don’t like is unconstitutional, for the low low price of a vacation getaway you too can influence my rulings, etc. But legally speaking laws override precedent and doing away with a law because it is unconstitutional is an extremely high bar which can’t realistically be met by the vast majority of laws unless the law directly goes against the few rules that the constitution establishes.
The court’s job is explicitly to interpret the laws made by congress.
No, not quite. The supreme court’s job is to interpret the constitution, not laws made by congress. Any law made by congress can be subject to review by the courts if a case involving that law is brought before them. As an example, the Supreme Court ruled in Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2021) that a portion of section 304(a) of the Campaign Reform Act of 2002 was unconstitutional, specifically the part that established a $250,000 limit on the amount of post-election campaign contributions that can be used to repay a candidate for personal campaign loans made pre-election.
If Congress makes a law establishing certain limits on presidential authority, and that law gets challenged in court, future supreme court sessions will have to determine if it is constitutional. One of the many ways they do that is to look at past precedent from previous supreme courts. They’re not bound by past precedent, but they make use of it quite often.
My understanding of the ruling is that, no, a law cannot do this. The ruling is mostly a separation of powers argument. Basically, if the president is not above the law then that means that Congress can override the Constitution by writing a law that, for example, makes the President’s constitutional duties illegal. Therefore, the president is allowed to officially do anything he wants limited only by the Constitution.
Obligatory: this is not an endorsement of the ruling and IANAL. It’s an awful ruling and terrible for the present and future of our country. It’s a violation of primary ideals of democracy and it needs to be overturned ASAP.
Can we just step back for a minute and look at the big picture here? We’re at a point where passing an amendment that says “the president cannot commit crimes” is seen as something that has no chance in passing, because one party is dedicated to protecting a criminal. The founders would be ashamed of us.
I mean, no argument from me. The fact that the Supreme Court basically just ruled that the President can operate independently from the law, like a fucking king, would have every single one of those guys spinning in their graves fast enough to power a city. It’s just the latest milestone in a decades-long quest by the Heritage Foundation to convert America’s government into a Christian theocracy.
You’re 100% missing the power of a sitting president making this official statement in the first place. Further, then giving the House/Senate and the state governments a choice to publicly shot themselves in the feet, on the record, by opposing such a common sense approach to this obvious problem.
The goal isn’t the amendment, it would be nice, but it’s not the first/main victory here.
Presidents say shit all the time, though. Just saying that there is a major problem is newsworthy, but it’s all worth a hill of beans if it doesn’t lead to lasting changes. I believe that he was right in that an amendment will be the securest way to enumerate the boundaries of executive authority, as it will be much harder for the Supreme Court to fuck that up, but there is an extremely high bar to pass to get an amendment through. If he decides to go the legislation route instead, any new laws that are passed by Congress are potentially subject to being overturned by the courts.
As for the optics of Republicans opposing supreme court reform or curtailing of executive authority… meh. We all watched nearly every single Republican in the House vote to not impeach Donald Trump on two separate occasions, for incredibly stupid reasons, and most of those people won re-election. Relying on the public to make good decisions when faced with bald-faced congressional corruption is a losing proposition.
Iirc constitutional ammendments have to pass both congress AND the states. It’s not an either or
Technically, it’s an either / or process. It either needs 2/3rds of both houses, or 2/3rds of state legislatures have to call for a constitutional convention. You are right, however, in that after either hurdle is passed, it still needs to be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures in the union. That’s where the equal rights amendment is now. It passed both houses, but has not yet met the 3/4 state legislature hurdle, so it’s still in the pipeline 81 years after its proposal. Yay government!
Ha. Good luck with that, seeing as it’ll be the supreme court ruling on the constitutionality of any law that’s passed. In short it’ll take a constitutional amendment to do anything, and that’s not happening in this political climate
He can kill them all and declare it an official act
“No one is above the law” seems a bit of circular with the fact that the law is what the Supreme Court says it is. Similarly, who would decide whether a Supreme Court judge violates the purported Code of Conduct?
I guess it would all come to the legislation branch, but even if the reform goes through, I’m afraid that the political division in the Congress would limit its effectiveness.
Maybe Congress should legislate against Marbury v. Madison.
Who would enforce the code of conduct on the supreme court would they have to be charged by a lower court? Or would it be congress or the president?
GOOD NEWS.
Let’s get this done.
Alrighty then.
Only Steven Seagul is
If it’s not an official executive order, it’s all bluster. Actions, not words.
An executive order would just be revoked by the next republican president
When there’s another Republican president, this will be the least of our worries. The Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society have captured the courts. There are no judicial means to enact this. If it is challenged in court, it will lose. Waiting for Congress to act is hopium. Do it, then apologize for having to do the right thing.
You seem confused on what an executive order is (or you’re not confused and are just saying this in bad faith). It’s not just the president randomly saying I order this to happen like some kind of dictator. It’s the executive laying out his/her interpretation of specifics on how a law should be implemented, a law already passed by congress. So unless congress has passed a law already, saying congress gives the executive the power to increase the size of the court on a whim, or decide to impose term limits on a whim (and they most certainly have not), then the power still rests with congress. Setting up and regulating the courts is a job expressly delegated to congress in the constitution. An executive order is meaningless here. What law would it derive its authority from? A congressional law might not even be enough for all of this, that’s why part of the plan talks about a constitutional amendment.
And “No words” ?! How on earth are we supposed to build a concensus to do something, if in your opinion no one is allowed to even talk about it or express their support until it’s already happened? You make no sense. The sitting president endorsing supreme court reform is a huge step. And Harris is endorsing it too. Now we just need enough members of congress to get on board, and that’s how it could happen. Not talking about it because it can’t happen this second doesn’t make it any more likely to happen. Comments like yours if anything make it less likely, and discourage support for the people trying to actually get it done.
I’m tired of all these nonsensical, “why doesn’t Biden just become dictator right now” comments. We’re voting against Trump because we don’t want a dictator.
”Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them… They [the assembly] should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”
Thomas Jefferson
I understand the limits of Executive Orders, but the Supreme Court has overstepped its bounds. How can you reel in a branch of government that decides which laws will be enforced? Congress is feckless and stilted and captured by interests.
Pretending that America can litigate itself away from fascism is foolish. Republicans and the conservatives will not give up power willingly. It has to be taken.
If the Democrats, who claim to want to uphold the conventions of democracy, will not act dictatorially, the Republicans, with the help of the Supreme Court, surely will.
I know what I am saying seems extreme, because it is. We are experiencing turmoil because of unchecked power. If the Democrats do not ACT the republic will be lost, if it is not already too late.
I fundamentally disagree. I think if you invoke authoritarianism to supposedly prevent it, you’ve already lost. I don’t think that’s the case yet though. I still have hope. Our country has been much less democratic than this before and managed to improve, it can happen again.
“What makes us happy is not to get what we want, but to dream about it.”
Slavoj Žižek
I mean this very practically, if Biden actually began acting extra judicially like you said, he’d just shatter norms faster, make all the false things Republicans say about democrats wanting to destroy democracy true, and lead to a landslide election victory for republicans in the fall (unless Biden went truly authoritarian and stopped the fall elections too). And it’d be obvious what would happen from there. I’m sorry but you just can’t fight fascism with fascism. It doesn’t work. You just get more fascism.
It’s a good thing I’m wrong then.
What do you suppose the president has the power to do in this case?
That doesn’t seem like a reasonable or well thought-out idea.
I’m open to other ideas. But, we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas won’t cut it with fascism looming. Act in a utilitarian manner, and sort out the deficiencies later.
Why not? As an originalist constitutionalists, conservatives should laud a president who reduces the court back to its Constitutionally mandated 6 justices.
Point of order: the Constitution doesn’t set the number of justices, it gives that power to Congress.
Somehow the writers of that Wikipedia article managed to fit that information into the first sentence.
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