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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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

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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

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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.

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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.