It didn't take Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) long to respond to President Joe Biden's plans laid out to supposedly reform the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, Biden announced his plans to upend the Court, which he also addressed later that same day during his remarks at the LBJ Library. Sure enough, Schumer announced on Thursday that he would be introducing the No Kings Act in response to the Trump v. United States decision on presidential immunity.
Schumer shared news of the bill from his X account.
What he posted mostly amounted to partisan buzzwords attacking the decision and Court, though.
Following the MAGA Supreme Court's disastrous immunity ruling:
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 1, 2024
I'm introducing the No Kings Act.
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.
The Founders were explicit: no man in America shall be a king.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 1, 2024
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.
In both of the posts he made, Schumer used hyperpartisan language, such as referring to "the MAGA Supreme Court" and ranting about how it is supposedly "disastrous" and sets a "dangerous precedent" that the Senate needs to "crack down on."
As TIME also explained about the bill:
The Senate bill, which has more than two dozen Democratic cosponsors, comes after Democratic President Joe Biden called on lawmakers earlier this week to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity, along with establishing term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-N.Y., recently proposed a constitutional amendment in the House.
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A constitutional amendment would be even more difficult to pass. Such a resolution takes a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, which is highly unlikely at this time of divided government, and ratification by three-fourths of the states. That process could take several years.
Still, Democrats see the proposals as a warning to the court and an effort that will rally their voting base ahead of the presidential election.
The 6-3 decision handed down exactly one month ago focused on presidents acting in their official capacity. That hasn't stopped liberals, including Justice Sonia Sotomayor with her dissent, from getting hysterical. The dissent was quoted by Biden himself, when he spoke to criticize the Court when the decision was first handed down, and on Monday.
On Monday, the president called Trump v. United States "a dangerous precedent" and also claimed it contained "a fundamentally flawed view and a fundamentally flawed principle, a dangerous principle."
Although he struggled to get his words out, Biden described the ruling as one where "the president of the United States has immunity for pro--for prote--for potential crimes he may have committed while in office--immunity."
In addition to quoting Sotomayor's dissent, Biden referenced the language about kings. "This nation was founded on the principle there are no kings in America. Each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law," he offered. "And for all practical purposes, the court’s decision almost certainly means that a president can violate their oath, flout our laws, and face no consequences," he went on to rant.
Biden engaged in plenty of fearmongering as well. This was apparent throughout his speech, including when ranting about the decision.
"Folks, just imagine what a president could do in trampling civil rights and liberties given such im--immunity. The court is being used to weaponize an extreme and unchecked agenda. This decision is a total affront to the basic expectations we have for those who wield the power in this nation, that they are expected to be wholly accountable under the law," he warned.
Curt Levey, the president of the Committee for Justice, who has been following such proposals and also testified as part of Biden’s Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, echoed that the Democrats have been "hysterical."
"Whether it’s Schumer’s No Kings Act or Biden’s proposal for a constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision in Trump v. U.S., the Democrat response to that decision continues to be hysterical," Levey offered.
He also explained what it is that the left doesn't seem to grasp. "It was a moderate decision that balanced presidential accountability against the need for presidents to govern the nation without the threat of post-presidency harassment hanging over their heads, and largely left the ultimate determinations of immunity to the lower courts. Had Trump v. US involved a GOP Administration indicting a Democrat ex-president – say, Barack Obama for drone attacks against Americans abroad – I don’t think we would see these Democrat proposals," Levey continued, offering another apt point.
Other Democrats in the Senate, especially Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the former who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, have similarly gone after the Court. This includes not only with targeting individual conservative justices, such as Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, but also looking to impose a code of conduct through so-called ethics legislation. Senate Democrats attempted to pass such a bill in June, though it failed after Republicans objected.
Speaking of rallying the base ahead of November, as the TIME article mentioned. Vice President Kamala Harris, will almost certainly replace Biden as the nominee. She is just as radical if not more so than Biden when it comes to upending the Court.
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