Monica Lewinsky penned on op-ed Monday calling for a series of constitutional amendments, including age limits for elected officials and a ban on presidential self-pardons. In a piece in Vanity Fai…
In a piece in Vanity Fair, Lewinsky offered her vision for a more robust democracy via six new amendments: no presidential self-pardons, mandatory background checks for presidents, no suspensions of the U.S. Constitution, a retirement age for elected officials, elimination of the Electoral College and codification of a woman’s right to an abortion.
There’s not a single thing wrong with anything she’s saying, except that she doesn’t go far enough. Well, also that part about suspension of the constitution I wonder what it means. If you suspend the constitution, then you’d presumably also not care about an amendment that says you cannot do so.
But anyways, for pardons, I would say that there should be a ban on any pardon where the President has a conflict of interests. For example, when Trump pardoned Stone. The President specifically shouldn’t be able to pardon anybody who he knows personally or who helped him personally.
There should be background checks for US presidents yes, but also for all congresspersons and Supreme Court Justices. All of their finances should be public information as a matter of course.
If it is important for a president to suspend habeus corpus, then that should be a power granted through the constitution, not through suspension of the constitution.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus doesn’t come from the Constitution, it is from common law. However, the Constitution does say “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This both protects Habeas Corpus, and also allows for suspending it. It was controversial when Lincoln did it because he did so unilaterally as president, rather than Congress doing it, but the Constitution doesn’t actually say who can suspend it, or specify a procedure, so Lincoln’s act was within the Constitution.
Tldr: Suspending Habeas Corpus is controversial, but not the same as suspending the Constitution.
The thing is that, largely, government works because people all just kind of agree that it should. If a president says “I’m suspending the Constitution to deal with an emergency”, what happens next? We have a bunch of masked fascists, at high levels in government and in Washington think tanks, who would talk a lot about the unitary executive theory. It would be presented as a done deal, as if there was no question that it was legal. Who would step in to stop it? In the best case scenario, we would have a major constitutional crisis, that would eventually get worked out between the courts, the press, the public, and hopefully some courageous civil servants. In the worst case, it would straight up end our democracy. Somewhere in between lies civil war, and whatever that leads to. If suspension is explicitly forbidden, it gets a lot harder to defend, and makes the best case scenario a lot more likely.
I’m less sure about the value of background checks for presidents. I’m not sure some routine background check would unearth anything that the other side’s oppo-research wouldn’t. But hey, can’t hurt. I’m guessing the intelligence agencies are already digging up everything they can find; making that an official requirement and publicly reported before the election might be really beneficial, not only directly, but also to prevent rogue officials from keeping the dirt to themselves and using it against a sitting president.
There should be background checks for US presidents yes, but also for all congresspersons and Supreme Court Justices. All of their finances should be public information as a matter of course.
This would enable the government to make anyone they don’t like criminals to keep them out of office.
I didn’t suggest that it would keep them out of office, just that it would be released to the public. If that public information is enough to keep them out of office, then guess what? The government today already has the ability to do it. The biggest difference is that everybody would be subject to it.
Getting rid of the slavery-era EC would be excellent, that’s for sure. No way the cons will go for that; it’s the only reason they win any presidency since 1988 (W getting popular vote for second term was due to being a “war president” and an incumbent and even then, it was a squeaker - and he would not be in there in the first place if it wasn’t for the EC in 2000).
I think it was a mistake to do so, but I believe he should be able to.
If a President campaigned on marijuana reform and pardons, could they pardon folks for marijuana related crimes.
I am ok with having some restrictions, maybe a review board or clearly defined method for legal challenges, but I think generally ok with the pardon power being fairly broad.
As an example could Ford have pardoned Nixon? I think it was a mistake to do so, but I believe he should be able to.
Why would you believe that the President should be able to give a pardon to somebody like that? What’s the benefit to the American public?
If a President campaigned on marijuana reform and pardons, could they pardon folks for marijuana related crimes.
He doesn’t know those people. There is no personal conflict of interests.
I am ok with having some restrictions, maybe a review board or clearly defined method for legal challenges, but I think generally ok with the pardon power being fairly broad.
There already IS a review board. There already are clearly defined methods for legal challenges. And that has nothing to do with pardoning your buddies after they committed crimes, especially if they committed crimes FOR YOU. Trump and Nixon went against the usual process. Federal pardons are almost always only given out after a person has completed their sentence, and on recommendation of the board.
Ostensibly there is a background check done on all of those it’s called the vetting process. But up until now it’s only been a voluntary process that virtually all presidents and most senators and congressmen go through.
To use the reverse term to that which Monica Lewinsky did, it took an luddite president like Trump to expose the weakness of not having laws that enforced those vetting processes.
There’s not a single thing wrong with anything she’s saying, except that she doesn’t go far enough. Well, also that part about suspension of the constitution I wonder what it means. If you suspend the constitution, then you’d presumably also not care about an amendment that says you cannot do so.
But anyways, for pardons, I would say that there should be a ban on any pardon where the President has a conflict of interests. For example, when Trump pardoned Stone. The President specifically shouldn’t be able to pardon anybody who he knows personally or who helped him personally.
There should be background checks for US presidents yes, but also for all congresspersons and Supreme Court Justices. All of their finances should be public information as a matter of course.
Suspension of the constitution meaning the president can’t say Habeus Corpus doesn’t apply during a state of crisis or some other similar example.
Lincoln did it, so did Wilson, Bush was too stupid to do it so Cheney got the Patriot act passed to do it for him.
If it is important for a president to suspend habeus corpus, then that should be a power granted through the constitution, not through suspension of the constitution.
The Writ of Habeas Corpus doesn’t come from the Constitution, it is from common law. However, the Constitution does say “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This both protects Habeas Corpus, and also allows for suspending it. It was controversial when Lincoln did it because he did so unilaterally as president, rather than Congress doing it, but the Constitution doesn’t actually say who can suspend it, or specify a procedure, so Lincoln’s act was within the Constitution.
Tldr: Suspending Habeas Corpus is controversial, but not the same as suspending the Constitution.
The thing is that, largely, government works because people all just kind of agree that it should. If a president says “I’m suspending the Constitution to deal with an emergency”, what happens next? We have a bunch of masked fascists, at high levels in government and in Washington think tanks, who would talk a lot about the unitary executive theory. It would be presented as a done deal, as if there was no question that it was legal. Who would step in to stop it? In the best case scenario, we would have a major constitutional crisis, that would eventually get worked out between the courts, the press, the public, and hopefully some courageous civil servants. In the worst case, it would straight up end our democracy. Somewhere in between lies civil war, and whatever that leads to. If suspension is explicitly forbidden, it gets a lot harder to defend, and makes the best case scenario a lot more likely.
I’m less sure about the value of background checks for presidents. I’m not sure some routine background check would unearth anything that the other side’s oppo-research wouldn’t. But hey, can’t hurt. I’m guessing the intelligence agencies are already digging up everything they can find; making that an official requirement and publicly reported before the election might be really beneficial, not only directly, but also to prevent rogue officials from keeping the dirt to themselves and using it against a sitting president.
There is no way to make any of this work. Nobody should have any power. (edited)
It doesn’t look like Trump plans to discuss his way out of the constitutional crisis:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-mulling-deploying-military-to-streets-on-day-1-if-elected-report-says
This would enable the government to make anyone they don’t like criminals to keep them out of office.
I didn’t suggest that it would keep them out of office, just that it would be released to the public. If that public information is enough to keep them out of office, then guess what? The government today already has the ability to do it. The biggest difference is that everybody would be subject to it.
Do you have to have a clean record to run for president, or just to vote?
Natural born citizen, at least 35 years old, and lived in the US for at least 14 years. That’s the only requirements to be President.
Assuming that isn’t meant to exclude babies born by cesarean…
She’s just spitballing. Making policy isn’t her job, but at least she gave the conversation a nudge in the right direction
Oh, the joke writes itself.
Getting rid of the slavery-era EC would be excellent, that’s for sure. No way the cons will go for that; it’s the only reason they win any presidency since 1988 (W getting popular vote for second term was due to being a “war president” and an incumbent and even then, it was a squeaker - and he would not be in there in the first place if it wasn’t for the EC in 2000).
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Re conflicts of interest, how is that line drawn?
As an example could Ford have pardoned Nixon?
I think it was a mistake to do so, but I believe he should be able to.
If a President campaigned on marijuana reform and pardons, could they pardon folks for marijuana related crimes.
I am ok with having some restrictions, maybe a review board or clearly defined method for legal challenges, but I think generally ok with the pardon power being fairly broad.
Why would you believe that the President should be able to give a pardon to somebody like that? What’s the benefit to the American public?
He doesn’t know those people. There is no personal conflict of interests.
There already IS a review board. There already are clearly defined methods for legal challenges. And that has nothing to do with pardoning your buddies after they committed crimes, especially if they committed crimes FOR YOU. Trump and Nixon went against the usual process. Federal pardons are almost always only given out after a person has completed their sentence, and on recommendation of the board.
Ostensibly there is a background check done on all of those it’s called the vetting process. But up until now it’s only been a voluntary process that virtually all presidents and most senators and congressmen go through.
To use the reverse term to that which Monica Lewinsky did, it took an luddite president like Trump to expose the weakness of not having laws that enforced those vetting processes.
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That’s the point, it kinda doesn’t matter. If someone is trying to suspend the Constitution, an amendment saying not to isn’t going to stop them.
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I think the point is that if they’re gonna suspend the constitution then they don’t really care what it says.
However, others will care and it’s less likely they’ll go along with it.