A leading House Democrat is preparing a constitutional amendment in response to the Supreme Court’s landmark immunity ruling. Rep.

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.

  • @Fedizen
    12•6 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
      7•6 months ago

      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.

      • @Fedizen
        4•6 months ago

        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.

        • @grueEnglish
          3•6 months ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
          1•6 months ago

          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.

      • @[email protected]
        3•6 months ago

        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?