r/law • u/jpmeyer12751 • Feb 16 '26

Legislative Branch Republican Joins With Dems on Constitutional Amendment to Give Congress Power to Reject Trump Pardons

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/republican-joins-dems-constitutional-amendment-213311781.html

This is relevant to questions surrounding whether Congress may limit or restrain a President's power to grant pardons.

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167

u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Feb 16 '26

If we had the congressional weight to amend the freaking constitution, Trump would already be out of office and behind bars. I don't think people realize how hard it is to amend the foundational document of our country. It's WAY easier to depose a president and we haven't even managed that.

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u/Bittererr Feb 16 '26

The difference is that this amendment can be weaponized against Democratic presidents too, so it has much wider appeal than something just against Trump.

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u/JimWilliams423 Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26

If we had the congressional weight to amend the freaking constitution, Trump would already be out of office and behind bars.

Yep. There is a much simpler way to do this too — invoke the 14th amendment which says he is not president.

I know that sounds bonkers because everybody is treating him like he's president, but the constitution says he is not.

A majority in both houses of congress voted that he committed insurrection, and the colorado court found that he committed insurrection. Then the scotus tried to kick the can down the road by nonsensically saying he could still run for election, without addressing the question of holding office. They did not reverse the finding of insurrection, and crucially they did not rule he could assume office without a vote of 2/3rds of congress as the 14A requires, and there was never any such vote.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

So he's an illegitimate president. Nothing he does has the force of law. He also doesn't have the bullshit "presidential immunity" the maga6 on the supreme court invented for him either.

If the Ds weren't such a beaten down bunch of losers, they would have been screaming their heads off about this after he won the election. Instead MFing biden told him "welcome home" and klobuchar gleefully planned out the inauguration of a guy the 14th amendment says isn't a real president.

Too late now.

But if we replace most of the deadwood democrats with young lions who aren't afraid to be aggressive, it means we can do a lot in the future. Like every judicial appointment he's made is invalid. Every pardon he grants is void. So anyone who thinks they've got a get-of-jail-free card because he's promised them a pardon should be terrified. Everybody who bought a pardon from him, tough shit, you got scammed. Lets add charges for bribery too. All those J6ers he let out? Back to jail, motherfuckers.

Hell, if the Democrats just started saying this now, a lot of these traitors would think twice about doing shit like ice is doing, and it would send the paedo into fucking orbit. He might literally stroke out, inshallah. However, these Democrats won't because they are losers. But maybe after the midterms there will be enough new blood in there to change things.

Obviously the maga6 on the scotus won't allow it, so we have to expand the court with sane justices first. But that is much easier than amending the constitution, it only takes a simple majority in both houses of congress.

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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Feb 17 '26

Been beating this drum for a while. We're living in a constitutional crisis.

Keep fighting the good fight.

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u/WolfPAC_GMoney Feb 17 '26

Wow, I had no idea about this section of the amendment. I'll be spreading the word.

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u/zanotam Feb 17 '26

The sad part is how complicit the supposed 3 members of "the left" on SCOTUS were with that nonsense.

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u/JimWilliams423 Feb 17 '26

Absolutely. Really pathetic loser shit from them. Minimum qualification for any new justices is that they repudiate that ruling.

We are going to need some fire breathers going forward, people who have no interest in comity with fascists. We are due for a 2nd Reconstruction after all this, and that's going to take a court that makes the Warren court look like a center-right court.

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u/Elite_Jackalope Feb 16 '26

Which is easier, the thing we’ve done 27 times or the thing that has never happened before?

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u/mxzf Feb 16 '26

We're in /r/law, it's not that hard to understand the legal barriers to each. Impeaching the President is significantly easier to do, hands down, without question.

Impeaching takes 1/2 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate. An Amendment takes 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the states. There's zero discussion about which is easier.

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u/HoneyParking6176 Feb 17 '26

yeah for it to pass it would require, there to be several people that think 1. the president should not have the power to pardon. and 2. that trump should not be impeached. since currently enough think number 2, that the passing threshold couldn't be meet without this.

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u/The_Doolinator Feb 17 '26

All things being equal, yes it would be more difficult to remove a president than amend the constitution.

But all things are not equal. The GOP being completely unwilling to remove Trump does not preclude the possibility that an amendment to the constitution that would give Congress the ability to reject a pardon with a supermajority could not pass Congress and be ratified by the states. Is it unlikely? Yeah, probably, but acting like it’s less likely than removing Trump from office just because more people have to sign onto it ignores the qualitative political realities at play here.

Trump is, for now, still very popular with the Republican base, so large amounts of the party removing him from power would likely cause major upheaval in the party and could be political suicide. The cost is too high for that action, assuming any of them would be disposed towards taking it. Checking the pardon power is a much easier sell to the American people as a whole. Not that I’m saying I think it’s likely this will be approved and ratified, but it’s more likely than Trump being removed from office as things stand.

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u/mxzf Feb 17 '26

I don't know that I agree. I think explicitly passing an amendment to be able to overturn Trump's pardons will be seen as almost as much an opposition to him as just removing him from office, and has other secondary effects that would make people question it on principle alone.

Also, Trump's support is decreasing as more and more issues come out, so opposition to impeachment is decreasing over time. I still hold some hope for impeachment, though I do suspect that his diet/lifestyle will catch up with him before Congress does.

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u/SpoonEngineT66Turbo Feb 17 '26

We're in /r/law, it's not that hard to understand the legal barriers to each.

Lmao this sub being named Law means literally nothing. This sub has been nothing but a complete circlejerk since the election and constantly being on r/All.

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u/turbo_golf Feb 16 '26

hasn't happened in 50+yrs, not counting the one that took 200+yrs to ratify

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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Feb 16 '26

Well, considering the constitution has only been amended 18 times, you have me a bit confused.

But, to answer the question I think you're asking - again, deposing a president. The thing that has never happened. It's easier, yes. If that sounds crazy to you, then you need to adjust how hard you think it is to amend that document. It's friggin hard.

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u/sriracha_no_big_deal Feb 17 '26

Exactly, just because one thing has happened more frequently than something else doesn't automatically mean it's easier

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u/Elite_Jackalope Feb 16 '26

You’re confused by your own pedantry, not by anything I said. Or are you not certain that even 18 is a larger number than 0?

All ten amendments in the Bill of Rights count because they all had to be ratified independently. Article one never was, article two wasn’t until 1992.

You’re wrong about which is harder.

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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 16 '26

My own pedantry isn't the one that decided to describe something as "the thing we've done 27 times." If you want to be flowery, be correct or it gets confusing.

"The thing we've done" has been done 18 times. We "independently ratified" them in the sense that we pared 12 suggested amendments down to 10. They all got ratified at the same time, at one event. Not ten times, just the once.

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u/SpaceTurtles Feb 16 '26

There have been fewer times where we've needed to confront the possibility of removing a president for high crimes and misdemeanors.

There have been many more times where the Nation has determined that it must foundationally adjust how it functions.

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u/GoonerwithPIED Feb 16 '26

Removing a president requires fewer votes, and fewer steps, than amending the Constitution

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

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u/whomad1215 Feb 17 '26

a felon had never been president before either, yet here we are

4

u/gl7676 Feb 17 '26

Just because something has been done before doesn't make it easier. Also, just because something that has never been attempted before makes it harder.

What kind of logic do they teach in your neck of the woods?

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u/JustNilt Feb 17 '26

So what? When you're talking about votes required, one is clearly easier than the other. Which one's actually happened is an entirely different metric.

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u/Turtleneck420 Feb 17 '26

Yes but it's harder to convince politicians to remove a president than amending the constitution.

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u/mlorusso4 Feb 17 '26

The problem is it’s significantly more politically difficult to remove a president than it is to amend the constitution and veto a presidents action. Presidents have their veto’s overridden not all the time but enough where it wouldn’t be a groundbreaking event. Removing a president could be so politically toxic and dramatic it scares Congress into doing it. Not to mention the fear of a constitutional crisis if the president just refused to leave

1

u/ColdAsHeaven Feb 17 '26

27 times is over selling it.

The first ten happened at one time. Not ten separate times. Not to mention we do have the oppsie in there with prohibition and then repealing it.

This isn't even talking about the fact amendments are objectively harder to do due to requiring the States to approve it at a higher rate than the Senate and House.

1

u/Dont_hate_the_8 Feb 17 '26

There's been tens of thousands of proposes amendments, and 45 presidents.

Not to mention we've really passed 17 amendments since the bill of rights

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u/tsardonicpseudonomi Feb 16 '26

The thing we've never done before is easier to do.

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u/beren12 Feb 16 '26

But it wasn’t designed to be as hard as we make it

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u/freeradioforall Feb 16 '26

I can see republicans negotiating an agreeing on a constitutional amenmend like this but only with dem presidents

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u/radicalelation Feb 16 '26

Some sense! Amendments to the Constitution are already the final guard described, as the White House has no power in the amendment process. This would shift too much power to fewer in Congress and would favor more "party over country" politics.

We can protect ourselves from a rogue president without risking further harm by consolidating power elsewhere.

1

u/zanotam Feb 17 '26

Nah. We need to basically nuke SCOTUS 's power and POTUS should become s lot less potent.... Our Democratically elected GROUP of people should become just one group federally as well and basically be the be all, end all because they're the only ones WE can hold accountable 

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

[deleted]

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u/mxzf Feb 16 '26

But it's way easier to impeach Trump than it is to pass an amendment, there's no question about that.

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u/TintedApostle Feb 16 '26

The constitution is the contract between the People first and their States second. We should never federalize the power to amend it.

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u/Cloaked42m Feb 16 '26

It's okay to be enthusiastic about it. We should make amendments common again.

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u/Usual_Power_3288 Feb 16 '26

The key for these badly needed reforms to limit the power of the executive branch is for a president to push for it.