Schumer Introduces 'No Kings Act' to Undo Supreme Court's Presidential Immunity Ruling
"Congress has an obligation to act as a check and ensure that the president does not become a king," an expert said in praise of Schumer's move.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday introduced legislation that would establish that the president and vice president don't have immunity from prosecution—an effort to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Trump v. United States that grants presidents broad immunity when they break the law.
The No Kings Act, which has 34 co-sponsors from the Senate's Democratic caucus, would stipulate that Congress, and not the Supreme Court, determines whom federal law applies to. It comes as the latest Democratic response to the July 1 ruling, decided 6-3 along ideological lines, that gave former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump "absolute immunity" for "core" presidential duties and "presumptive immunity" for other official acts.
"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," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
"With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation—and a constitutional authority—to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch," he added.
Progressive advocacy group Public Citizen praised Schumer for introducing the bill.
"The framers of the Constitution never intended the executive branch to be immune from legal recourse, and they would have seen this decision as an invitation for presidents to become tyrants," Lisa Gilbert, the group's co-president, said in a statement. "Congress has an obligation to act as a check and ensure that the president does not become a king."
The Founders were explicit: no man in America shall be a king.
But the MAGA Supreme Court threw out centuries of precedent and anointed Trump and subsequent presidents as kings above the law.
That's why I'm introducing the No Kings Act to crack down on this dangerous precedent.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 1, 2024
The Supreme Court's immunity decision caused outrage among Democrats, who viewed it as blatantly partisan—three of the six assenting justices were appointed by Trump, and all six were appointed by Republicans—and a threat to democracy, given the way it could erode accountability in the country's highest office. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "the president is now king above the law."
The impact of the immunity ruling on the four criminal cases against Trump—he's been convicted in one and another has since been dismissed—is not fully clear but it's generally believed to strengthen his defense and complicate prosecutors' efforts.
Last week, Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.) proposed a constitutional amendment to establish that "there is no immunity from criminal prosecution for an act on the grounds that such act was within the constitutional authority or official duties of an individual." The proposal has 70 Democratic co-sponsors.
On Monday, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, called for sweeping Supreme Court reforms—a monumental move that progressives had pushed him to make for years—in an op-ed in The Washington Post. He started his argument, which included a call for term limits and a constitutional amendment, by citing the immunity ruling. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, quickly backed the plan.
None of these efforts have a strong chance of passage in the short term. Constitutional amendments generally require a two-thirds majority in Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
The No Kings Act wouldn't face such a high bar, but passage is unthinkable so long as the Republicans control the House of Representatives. Moreover, if passed, the Supreme Court would in all likelihood strike the bill down.
To forestall that issue, Schumer has written into the bill "jurisdiction stripping" measures that would remove the Supreme Court's authority to render the legislation unconstitutional, and allow only lower courts in the District of Columbia to handle a legal challenge. Such jurisdiction stripping has been seldom used in the past and would likely be highly controversial.
Jurisdiction stripping has never happened till it does, and is a false promise until it isn't. https://t.co/lGYfLxdyQs
— Samuel Moyn 🔭 (@samuelmoyn) August 1, 2024
Even if the Democrats don't see immediate legislative results, the messages that their proposals send could resonate with voters. Polling from Navigator Research released on Tuesday indicated that a solid majority of Americans disagreed with the Supreme Court's immunity decision.
