WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will introduce legislation on Thursday reaffirming that presidents do not have immunity from criminal prosecution, an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court ruling historic decision last month.
Schumer’s No Kings Act would attempt to invalidate the ruling by declaring that presidents are not immune from criminal law and clarifying that Congress, not the Supreme Court, determines to whom federal criminal law applies.
The court’s conservative majority ruled on July 1 that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken within the scope of their official duties — a ruling that cast doubt on the Justice Department’s case against former Republicans. President Donald Trump for his efforts to reverse his 2020 electoral defeat.
Schumer of New York said Congress has the obligation and constitutional authority to check the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court’s decision, legislation would be the quickest and most efficient method to correct the serious precedent set by Trump’s decision,” he said.
The Senate bill, which has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors, comes after Democrats President Joe Biden called on lawmakers earlier this week to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity, along with establishing term limits and an applicable code of ethics for the court’s nine judges. Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-N.Y., recently proposed a constitutional amendment in the House.
The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling surprised Washington and drew a sharp dissent of the court’s liberal justices warning of the dangers to democracy, especially as Trump seeks a return to the White House.
Trump celebrated the decision as a “BIG VICTORY” 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.
Speaking about Biden’s proposal, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Biden’s proposal would “destroy 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 Senate, which is highly unlikely in this time of divided government, and ratification by three-quarters of the states. This process can take several years.
Still, Democrats see the proposals as a warning to the court and an effort that will rally their voter base before the the presidential election.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump in the November election, said earlier this week reforms are necessary because “there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court.”
The title of Schumer’s bill dates back to Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissent in the case, in which 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, fundamental to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law,” Sotomayor said.
In the decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that “our constitutional structure of separate powers, the nature of presidential power, confers on a former president absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his constitutional authority. conclusive and preclusive”.
But Roberts insisted the president is “not above the law.”
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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
