Free Speech For Folks strongly endorses Rep. Joe Morelle’s newly launched constitutional modification that can make sure that no officer of america—together with the president— is above the regulation.
The modification prevents U.S. officers from asserting immunity on the grounds that the alleged felony act was inside the constitutional authority of their workplace or associated to their official duties. It additionally confirms {that a} President has no constitutional authority to pardon himself or herself.
It’ll reverse the Supreme Courtroom’s current determination in Trump v. United States, which manufactured an unprecedented and harmful idea of presidential immunity. The Supreme Courtroom’s determination upends a whole bunch of years of precedent and betrays a defining function of our constitutional democracy: that every one individuals are equal within the eyes of the regulation and that nobody, not even the president, is above it. It leaves our nation susceptible to deprave, lawless officers who abuse the ability of their workplace and will now assert that energy as grounds to evade prosecution. And it’s joined by two Justices who ought to have been recused from listening to the case because of clear conflicts of curiosity.
The modification shouldn’t be essential. However as a result of it’s, it’s crucial that Congress, the states, and the folks of this nation act swiftly to go this modification, affirm the ideas of equality earlier than the regulation which are a bedrock of our democracy, and shut the door to authoritarianism that the Supreme Courtroom has opened.
Free Speech For Folks applauds Rep. Morelle and his co-sponsors for introducing the modification.
Learn extra right here concerning the democracy amendments, a sequence of amendments to reclaim our democracy that Free Speech For Folks helps.
Learn extra right here about Free Speech For Folks’s demand for Supreme Courtroom accountability and reform to revive legitimacy to the Courtroom.
