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 the Associated Press. Referring to Donald Trump, Morelle emphasized that the former president “must be held accountable for his decisions.” He urged his colleagues to support his amendment and stand with him on the front line to protect democracy.
This move is the most significant legislative response yet to the decision from the court’s conservative majority, which stunned Washington and drew a sharp dissent from the court’s liberal justices. The dissent warned of the perils to democracy, particularly as Trump seeks a return to the White House. However, the effort stands almost no chance of succeeding in this Congress.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their official duties. This decision throws into doubt the Justice Department’s cases against Trump, including his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump and his allies celebrated the ruling by the court, which includes three justices appointed by the former president. His legal team immediately moved to delay sentencing for his felony conviction in an unrelated hush money case in New York state court that had been scheduled for next week. The judge agreed to push off the sentencing until fall.
The outcome all but ensures the federal cases against Trump will not be resolved before the November election when he faces a likely rematch with President Joe Biden.
While the constitutional amendment process would likely take years and may never come to fruition, supporters believe it is the most surefire way, even beyond a new law, to enshrine the norm that presidents can face consequences for their actions. “This amendment will guarantee that no public officer of the United States — including the president — is able to evade the accountability that any other American would face for violating our laws,” Morelle wrote in a letter to colleagues this week.
He quoted from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who led the dissent, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who joined in dissenting, before summing up in his own words: “Presidents are citizens, not tyrants.”
Another Democrat, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said Monday she planned to file articles of impeachment against the justices over the ruling, which she said represents “an assault on American democracy.” “It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture,” Ocasio-Cortez said on social media. “I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.”
Congress can launch the constitutional amendment process and then send it to the states for ratification. Such a resolution takes a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, which is highly unlikely at this time of divided government, and ratification by three-fourths of the states. So far, there have been 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
A Democratic congressman is calling for a new constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling granting presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution, a decision that could hamstring the federal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Congressman Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat, raised the idea on Monday, just hours after the Supreme Court issued its 6-3 decision, which fell along ideological lines.
“I will introduce a constitutional amendment to reverse SCOTUS’s harmful decision and ensure that no president is above the law,” Morelle wrote on X. “This amendment will do what SCOTUS failed to do – prioritize our democracy.”
But Morelle’s plan is highly unlikely to succeed. A constitutional amendment can be proposed either by a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate or by a constitutional convention, which may be called by two-thirds of state legislatures. With Republicans controlling the House of Representatives and a majority of state legislative chambers, that hurdle appears impossible to overcome. Republicans largely celebrated the court’s ruling as a win for the rule of law, despite legal experts’ warnings that the decision could set a dangerous precedent for future presidents.
“Today’s ruling by the court is a victory for former president Trump and all future presidents, and another defeat for President Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice and Jack Smith,” Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said on Monday.
Even if a two-thirds majority of Congress members did somehow come together to propose Morelle’s suggested amendment, it would need to be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures to be added to the constitution. Given that Democrats control just 41% of state legislative chambers, ratification efforts would almost certainly prove futile.
With few options to challenge the court’s ruling, Democrats seem intent on turning the immunity case into a campaign issue. As he addressed the court’s decision on Monday evening, Joe Biden called on Americans to prevent Trump from returning to the White House at a time when “he’ll be more emboldened to do whatever he pleases.”
“Now the American people have to do what the court should have been willing to do and will not,” Biden said. “The American people have to render a judgment about Donald Trump’s behavior.”
Source: Associated Press
