Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer rolled out legislation Thursday aimed at effectively nixing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month that granted presidents absolute immunity for official acts.
Titled the “No Kings Act,” Schumer’s bill declares that presidents and vice presidents do not enjoy immunity if they infringe upon federal criminal law.
“This bill would reaffirm that the President is not immune to legal accountability and remove the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to hear appeals related to presidential immunity,” Schumer (D-NY) explained in a statement.
Specifically, it would maintain that Congress — not the Supreme Court — determines who is subject to federal criminal statutes.
Under his legislation, federal prosecutors could bring forward charges against a president or vice president in any district court and there would be a 180-day statute of limitations for facial constitutional challenges.
Schumer blasted the “MAGA Supreme Court” and argued that the Constitution “explicitly” empowers Congress to put checks on the president.
“The MAGA Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity was the very antithesis of the kind of accountability our framers envisioned. It just goes to show you what a morass the Supreme Court is in right now,” he said during remarks on the Senate floor.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Trump v. the United States, in which it sided with the former president in determining that the commander-in-chief enjoys immunity for official acts.
The high court concluded that presidents do not enjoy criminal immunity for unofficial acts, but left the distinction somewhat unanswered.
The high court also asserted that presidents enjoy a presumption of innocence, but remanded to the lower courts the question of whether that immunity applies to former President Donald Trump’s four-count 2020 election subversion case.
It also found that his intent cannot be used to prove criminal wrongdoing against him.
A chorus of Democrats, including President Biden, were deeply troubled by the Supreme Court’s ruling, which they fretted could give presidents a blank check to violate the law.
On Monday, Biden unveiled a suite of proposed Supreme Court reforms such as 18-year term limits, binding ethics rules, and a constitutional amendment declaring that presidents aren’t absolutely immune from criminal liability.
Vice President Kamala Harris promptly backed the plan, though a number of key Democrats in the Senate were seemingly not given significant advance notice and contended that they would look at it.
At least 38 Democrats co-sponsored Schumer’s bill, which would almost certainly be dead on arrival in the GOP-led House of Representatives.
Democrats have publicly cast Trump as a threat to democracy and warned that the Supreme Court’s ruling would leave him unchecked if he were to return to the White House.
They’ve also long grumbled over the Supreme Court’s lurch to the right following three appointments Trump made to the bench, which has led to a flurry of decisions on guns, abortion, administrative power and more that have vexed Democrats.
Trump scored another legal win last month when Judge Aileen Cannon tossed out the 40-count Mar-a-Lago document case against him.
That case had been seen by many legal analysts as one of the strongest indictments against him. Trump now has 14 criminal counts outstanding. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing in all of them.