From his first day in office—and every day since then—President Biden has taken action to strengthen American democracy and protect the rule of law. In
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”.
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!
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.
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.
Laws for contraceptive right are needed because SCOTUS ruled there weren’t any laws saying it was a right, because they have the constitution backwards.
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”.
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!
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.
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.
SCOTUS can simply rule the law unconstitutional…
Laws for contraceptive right are needed because SCOTUS ruled there weren’t any laws saying it was a right, because they have the constitution backwards.
Rights not enumerated… are no longer rights.
They don’t give a shit if the rights are enumerated lol