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House Democrat is proposing a constitutional amendment to reverse Supreme Court's immunity decision

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.

BigMacHole ,

ADDING an Amendment to a Document that the Supreme Court is IGNORING is the PERFECT way to Fix this!

Freefall ,

The SCOTUS will rule the president still has immunity, again…they don’t care what the Constitution actually says.

lolcatnip ,

And also impossible because the Republicanazis would never allow it.

InternetUser2012 ,

republikkklowns

PanArab , (edited )

Good luck getting -2/3- 3/4 of the states to ratify it.

Snowclone ,

I’d hope this ruling would inspire the need, but I won’t hold my breath.

chiliedogg ,

3/4 for amendments, actually.

PanArab ,

That’s even harder.

gmalette , (edited )

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

baronvonj ,
@baronvonj@lemmy.world avatar

Seriously, he needs to “no not like that” this shit so far that the Republicans have no choice but to reign in their bullshit.

Semi_Hemi_Demigod ,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

How are they expected to prosecute the “Biden Crime Family” if they can’t prosecute the Kingpin?

Furbag , (edited )

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!

null ,

What’s a “core act” or “official act”? Who decides that?

Waraugh ,

I’ll do it

JakenVeina ,

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.

Llewellyn ,

They’ve INTENTIONALLY left it unspecified what counts as an “official” act

That’s a speculation, thought.

gmalette ,

Well he just needs to do exactly those that Trump did 😅

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Also because Biden isn’t a criminal.

This ruling only benefits criminal Presidents, which is what Trump was and may soon be again.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Also because Biden isn’t a criminal.

The US has committing war crimes on a regular basis, globally, practically since the word entered the vernacular.

Biden still hasn’t closed Gitmo - a two decade running war crime - along with the rest of our torture prisons and black sites. He’s blatantly violated international law via our looting of the Afghan Treasury, our terror bombing in Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Iraq, our mercenary kill squads sent into Mali, Yemen, Congo, Nigeria, and Haiti, and our illegal occupation from the the Philippines and Japan to Panama and Cuba.

And then there’s Israel.

Biden’s continued criminal misconduct dating back to the McKinley Administration. Its just within the scope of his office, so the SCOTUS thinks he’s beyond prosecution.

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

When you don’t know anything about foreign affairs, international law, what a war is, what an occupation is, then sure, everything looks like a war crime.

But there is actually definitions for these kinds of things. You might want to look into them so you won’t continue to sound like a teenager.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

everything looks like a war crime

Mass execution of civilians is always a war crime.

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Again, not familiar enough with what a war is. It’s not like a video game portrayal of war where the civilians are outlined with a different colour than the combatants. Sure it could be a little closer to that if all combatants wore uniforms, but sometimes one side in a war fights dirty and doesn’t wear uniforms and actively tries to blend in with the civilians.

In any case in every war there are civilian causalities. Unlike video games there’s no option to make the bullets only damage enemies. The reality is you have a bunch of scared teenagers firing live bullets that can kill they enemy, friendly soldiers, and civilians.

Never hear the phrase “war is hell”? You think people were just joshing you about that? Now that you see that war isn’t how it’s portrayed in movies and video games you need to call it something else so you can continue to think war is a fun thing?

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

I’d say it makes a criminal President into a King.

It doesn’t give the president authority to do anything he wants. It just shields him from prosecution if he commits a crime.

Biden isn’t a criminal so he has no additional authority. Trump on the other hand is a criminal and makes no apologies for it. He will commit crimes if he’s President again. And Trump’s weaselly nature around the law means he’ll be able to find every crime he can convince people to commit on his behalf. It won’t matter if it’s known he ordered the crime to happen he’s immune. His henchmen can get pardons. He no longer would need to care that the pardon would nullify fifth amendment protections on compelling testimony since he’s immune from prosecution. And if he gets elected as a convicted felon, why would he care about things like legacy (as if he did before)?

Muscar ,

“go on a crime”

gmalette ,

I think I a word

“spree”

Yawweee877h444 ,

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

TokenBoomer ,

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.

AdrianTheFrog ,
@AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world avatar

He can still probably get impeached, if it’s something congress doesn’t like

PrettyFlyForAFatGuy ,

dems have the senate, he wont be convicted

irotsoma ,
@irotsoma@lemmy.world avatar

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.

friend_of_satan ,

Dark Brandon is the hero this country needs.

SeattleRain ,

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Hackworth ,

Do you not believe they’re preparing an amendment, or do you not believe it will pass?

SeattleRain ,

I think they’ll sabotage it or compromise it so much it will be meaningless like the Dems always do.

Hackworth ,

You believe it’s the Dem’s that do the sabotaging, and that they are compromising to…themselves? Interesting.

shikitohno ,

For some of their more conservative members, they’ve certainly done so in the past, but I’m pretty sure that @SeattleRain 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.

Hackworth ,

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.

shikitohno ,

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.

quoll ,
@quoll@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

repeal the 2nd while you at it

archonet ,

yes, the perfect time to give up our guns, when the fascists are on the verge of getting control of the government, what a smart idea

LordCrom ,

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

Laurentide ,
@Laurentide@pawb.social avatar

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.

Beaver ,
@Beaver@lemmy.ca avatar

Ranked choice voting can fix that issue as first-past-the-post sucks so bad.

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

Agree on ranked choice, but Prop Rep doesn’t have a good track record.

Cethin ,

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.

twistypencil ,

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

SpaceCowboy ,
@SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca avatar

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.

droans ,

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.

robocall ,
@robocall@lemmy.world avatar

Nothing pisses off congress more than having to do something and vote on legislation. Supreme Court made an enemy.

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