WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will introduce legislation Thursday that reaffirms that presidents do not have immunity for criminal actions. This is an attempt to overturn the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month.
Schumer’s legislation, called the “No Kings Act,” aims to invalidate the decision by declaring that presidents are not immune from criminal law. The bill clarifies that Congress, not the Supreme Court, determines who is subject to federal criminal law.
The court’s conservative majority ruled on July 1 that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within their official duties. This decision casts doubt on the Justice Department’s case against former President Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Schumer, from New York, stated that Congress has the obligation and constitutional authority to check the Supreme Court’s decision.
”Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court’s ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correct the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented,” he said.
The Senate bill, which has more than two dozen Democratic cosponsors, comes after President Joe Biden called on lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity. Biden also proposed establishing term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the Supreme Court justices. Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-N.Y., recently proposed a constitutional amendment in the House.
The Supreme Court’s immunity decision surprised Washington and drew a sharp dissent from the court’s liberal justices. They warned of the dangers to democracy, particularly as Trump seeks to return to the White House.
Trump celebrated the decision as a “BIG WIN” on his social media platform, and Republicans in Congress rallied around him. Without GOP support, Schumer’s bill has little chance of passing in the narrowly divided chamber.
Regarding Biden’s proposal, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said that it would “shred the Constitution.”
A constitutional amendment would be even more difficult to pass. Such a resolution requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, which is highly unlikely at this time of divided government. It also needs ratification by three-fourths of the states. This process could take several years.
Still, Democrats view the proposals as a warning to the court and an effort that will mobilize their voting base ahead of the presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump in the November election, said earlier this week that these reforms are necessary because “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”
The title of Schumer’s bill is a reference to Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the case. She said that “in every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
The decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law,” Sotomayor said.
In the ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that “our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”
But Roberts insisted that the president “is not above the law.”