“All of that is unconstitutional.”
Democrats' recently introduced bill targeting the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity highlights their willingness to weaken co-equal branches of government if they don't like the outcome of the ruling, legal experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Days after President Joe Biden was inaugurated It is called Calling for a constitutional amendment to clarify that “a president is not above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has introduced legislation aimed at overturning the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity. The No Kings Act, which Schumer introduced on Thursday, would not only overturn the Supreme Court's ruling, but also: strip The Supreme Court does not even have the power to consider challenges to the bill itself, let alone challenges to the prosecution of a former president for crimes related to his official duties.
“Every one of them is unconstitutional,” Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, told DCNF about the provisions in Schumer's bill.
Shapiro said both Schumer's bill and Biden's amendment place “too much emphasis” on Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion. (Related: Chuck Schumer introduces bill to overturn Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling)
“This is a rational, fairly limited decision,” he said. “Any protests against it are either in bad faith or don't understand the law.”
The Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that a president is immune from criminal prosecution for “official business” performed while in office. The majority opinion left it to lower courts to analyze which charges in former President Donald Trump's indictment qualify as official business that qualify for immunity.
“The call to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity is part of Kamala Harris' progressive attack on the Constitution,” John Yoo, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, told DCNF.
“Overturning the Supreme Court's decisions through unconstitutional means such as statutes shows progressives' disdain for a branch of government,” Yu said. “This is consistent with Biden's proposal for term limits on justices and Harris' support, as well as Harris's call for expanding the Supreme Court in 2020. Even if it doesn't pass, it's a clear threat to the Supreme Court simply because progressives don't agree with the Court's interpretation of the Constitution.”
The voting results from past terms contradict Democrats' claims that the Supreme Court is “out of control.”
Several high-profile cases, including a challenge to an abortion pill and former President Donald Trump's eligibility to run for president in 2024, ended in unanimous decisions. Of the 22 decisions that were split 6-3, only half were predictably split along ideological lines, with Republican-appointed justices on one side and Democratic-appointed justices on the other. according to To the empirical Supreme Court. (Related article: Democrats want us to believe the Supreme Court is “out of control.” Final voting results shatter that theory.)
Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the bill is “just the latest salvo in Democrats' war on the Supreme Court.”
“If Democrats want to repeal presidential immunity, they can't do it retroactively, but they can pass a prospective constitutional amendment,” Jacobson told DCNF. “Recognizing that a constitutional amendment is unlikely to pass, Schumer is attempting to create a workaround by limiting the right of appeal to the Supreme Court. Whether this workaround is viable remains to be seen, but there's nothing principled about it.”
Biden on Monday proposed implementing term limits for judges, passing a binding ethics code and enacting a constitutional amendment to make clear that the president does not enjoy immunity from prosecution for his official duties.
The Founding Fathers made it clear that no one could be king in America.
But the MAGA Supreme Court has overturned centuries of precedent and installed President Trump and subsequent presidents as kings above the law.
That is why I am introducing the No Kings Act to crack down on this dangerous precedent.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 1, 2024
Schumer's bill would limit the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston. Highlighting Reason magazine states, “Any conviction of the president of the United States would likely stop at a lower court, probably the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which will likely be dominated by Democratic appointees for at least the next 20 years.”
Blackmun said there was “no chance” the bill would pass the current Congress, but it could if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election and Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress.
“If the Supreme Court is stripped of its jurisdiction because of presidential immunity, it is only a matter of time before similar bills on abortion, the Second Amendment, congressional election law, etc. are passed,” Blackmun wrote. “This bottomless pit will only get deeper.”
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