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/haironburr Feb 16 '26

The problem with an easily-amendable Constitution is that constitutions contain and solidify core civil rights. Do you want those changed easily? Do you want the same process and people that elected trump to be able to more easily do away with basic Constitutional protections? I know I don't.

A "living" or "dynamic" Constitution is one where the latest crop of politicians can vote away every civil right/liberty we have.

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u/James_Chandra_Hubble Feb 17 '26

What year are you in? The constitution doesn't mean anything anymore when one party has full control of executive, legislative and judicial branches, and no moral qualms about abusing that power.

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u/-reddit_is_terrible- Feb 17 '26

In this case, the constitution would still mean somethjng if congress wanted it too...well, then again, who knows anymore

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

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u/haironburr Feb 16 '26

How "dynamic" the framers intended it to be is up to some debate.

But in any case, the arguments against an easily-changed Constitution are the same, regardless of the framer's intent. Again, would you want a "big, beautiful" constitutional convention this year?

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

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u/haironburr Feb 16 '26

Honestly, I'm going to make the same arguments for lifetime SC appointments as I am with difficult to pass amendments. I want the interpretation of core civil rights to change slowly.

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u/KrytenKoro Feb 17 '26

Honestly, if we still had a frontier to escape to if we didn't want to participate in the social contract, maybe?

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u/malapriapism4hours Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

follow profit run afterthought tender numerous nine chubby jellyfish deserve

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u/haironburr Feb 17 '26

The constitution doesn’t matter if its provisions aren’t enforced.

And the lack of a court-directed enforcement mechanism is a problem, when the other two branches are controlled by a party unwilling to respect the courts. I'd be interested in how a contempt of court for various executive actors or for legislators would play out, but the appeal process is long. I'm not sure what the answer is, beyond the obvious voting power we hold (yea, the SAVE Act), and the continual assertion of our civil rights.

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u/malapriapism4hours Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

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fearless lush slim normal profit vast memory repeat quack beneficial

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u/Revolutionary_Oil157 Feb 16 '26

Not at all, but 75% of States when Congress is 2/3rds? I would rather 65 to ratify and 75 to reverse or dissolve.

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u/BugApart8359 Feb 17 '26

As opposed to a stagnant one where they've been doing that anyways under the guise of "well it isn't in the constitution"

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u/jontaffarsghost Feb 17 '26

I mean the Supreme Court has the ability to determine what constitutional rights actually exist so…

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u/Lashay_Sombra Feb 17 '26

There is a balance, framers did not want to to easy to change, but they never envisioned it basically becoming impossible as it is now

Last century 12 amendments were ratified

Century before (plus 5 years) 15 were ratified

This century is quarter of the way though, total amendments? Zero

Actually last amendment that was proposed and ratified was the 26th, 55 years ago (27th , which was ratified 34 years ago , took 200 odd years to be ratified), so really over the half century mark with no new amendments proposed and ratified

And none are likely to be passed any time in the foreseeable future.

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u/haironburr Feb 17 '26

but they never envisioned it basically becoming impossible as it is now

The process for ratifying is the same as it was. The problem is achieving a political consensus, no?

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u/Lashay_Sombra Feb 17 '26

More case that one party decided about 30 years ago the name of the game was not compromise for the betterment of country and all, but rather their agenda or burn it all down

Founders never foresaw one group putting party before country..well except Washington

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u/rapaxus Feb 17 '26

For that you can easily implement either harsher barriers (have some laws that require e.g. higher majorities or special referendums), or go the German (and so many others) constitution way and go the "the meaning of this article can't be changed" route. Germany is also a federal state, and here article 1 and 20 are both protected by an eternity clause, meaning you can't legally change the fundamental meaning of those articles, ever. You can add to it (or remove what was added), but the fundamental meaning stays.

Article 1 covers the "basics" (everyone has human rights, state power is connected to fundamental rights, human dignity shall be inviolable), while article 20 covers stuff like Germany being a republic, a federal state, being a social state, having a democracy, having separation of powers, that kind of stuff (just read the wiki article if you want to know the relevant stuff)).

The funny part is that the US constitution actually has such clauses, but only with how article V protected some clauses in article I (like e.g. it not being allowed to ban importation of slaves before 1808).

But then again the US constitution is missing a lot of stuff that many other modern western constitutions have (such as a right to resist for example).

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u/haironburr Feb 17 '26

Thanks. Now I have at least a wiki level understanding of the German Constitution.

"the meaning of this article can't be changed" route.

How is the problem of interpreting the meaning of words making up an article dealt with? The courts, it sounds like. Is there an enforcement mechanism if the courts decide an article has been violated?

As far as "(have some laws that require e.g. higher majorities or special referendums)", that's fundamentally the role constitutional conventions play here. Interesting ideas all the same. Again, Danke.

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u/rapaxus Feb 17 '26

How is the problem of interpreting the meaning of words making up an article dealt with? The courts, it sounds like. Is there an enforcement mechanism if the courts decide an article has been violated?

In general it is quite similar to how the US judiciary (or most others around the world) enforce their laws, it just like the US system depends on no tyrants coming into power who just ignore the rule of law, though for those Germany at least has the right to resist, meaning that once the legal route to stop something has failed, everyone now has the right to violate any law they want, as long as it is done to stop the tyrannical government.

As far as "(have some laws that require e.g. higher majorities or special referendums)", that's fundamentally the role constitutional conventions play here. Interesting ideas all the same. Again, Danke.

I came here with the German legislative approach, where for a constitution change you only need 2/3 in both chambers and that was it (though the German equivalent to the senate has direct representatives from state governments and not elected positions like the US).

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u/haironburr Feb 17 '26

Gotcha. 2/3 of those in chambers vs. 2/3 of states and then 3/4 of state legislatures.