Finally, some or most of Congress may do something to Rein in SCOTUS and the rogue Justices. The question here being can they nullify Congress’s act in some fashion. No Kings Act WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation Thursday reaffirming that presidents do not have immunity for criminal actions, an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month. Schumer’s No Kings Act would attempt to invalidate the decision by declaring that presidents are not immune from criminal law and clarifying that Congress, not the Supreme Court, determines to whom federal criminal law is applied. The court’s conservative majority decided July 1 that presidents have broad immunity from criminal
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Finally, some or most of Congress may do something to Rein in SCOTUS and the rogue Justices. The question here being can they nullify Congress’s act in some fashion.
No Kings Act
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation Thursday reaffirming that presidents do not have immunity for criminal actions, an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month.
Schumer’s No Kings Act would attempt to invalidate the decision by declaring that presidents are not immune from criminal law and clarifying that Congress, not the Supreme Court, determines to whom federal criminal law is applied.
The court’s conservative majority decided July 1 that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their official duties. This, a decision throwing into doubt the Justice Department’s case against Republican former President Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Schumer, of New York, said that Congress has an obligation and the constitutional authority to check the Supreme Court on its decision.
”Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court’s ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented,” he said.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s TAKE: The Supreme Court has such an enormous responsibility to protect our country’s political and moral values that anyone who is not legally brilliant, ethically responsible, and fully committed to the ideals of impartiality should be excluded—or fired. But the real world doesn’t work like that and so we sometimes can get political hacks who are not brilliant, ethical, or impartial. They push party agendas because that’s who gave them the job. They are either low-level thinkers like Clarence Thomas, whose opinions are muddled justifications for serving the GOP while enjoying his bribes/gifts, or they are Christian nationalists like Samuel Alito, whose opinions are based on personal faith rather than objectively weighing of facts.
In an interview with Fox News, Justice Neil Gorsuch warned reformers to “be careful”:
“I have one thought to add. It is that the independent judiciary—what does it mean to you as an American? It means that when you’re unpopular, you can get a fair hearing under the law and under the constitution,” Gorsuch said. “If you’re in the majority, you don’t need judges and juries to hear you and protect your rights. You’re popular. It’s there for the moments when the spotlight’s on you. When the government’s coming after you. And don’t you want a ferociously independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions? Isn’t that your right as an American? And so I just say—be careful.”
What he fails to understand is that the reason people want to see reform in SCOTUS is that they don’t see the justices as being “ferociously independent” protectors, but rather robed tools of the rich and powerful or their own biases. A June AP/NORC poll showed that 70% of respondents believed that justices were “more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideologies.”
In the end, it may take an amandment.