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.

  • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    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.

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      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.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      *hanged.

      “Hung” is a… different thing, which the male justices might see as a positive.

      • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        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.

        • nomous@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          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

    • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      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.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        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.

        • twistypencil@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          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

      • Snapz@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        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
    • mister_flibble@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      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.

    • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      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

      • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        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.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        5 months ago

        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

        • InternetUser2012@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          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.

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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            4 months ago

            My point was that the average American is simply too disconnected from politics to see this. The average voter is terrifyingly uninformed