Joe Biden issued his edict regarding how he wanted to "reform" the Supreme Court and Kamala Harris went all-in on ensorsing the idea, despite its blatantly unconstitutional nature. Now congressional Democrats are obediently scrambling to do as they are bidden and trying to craft some sort of legislation that would put handcuffs on the justices, particularly those nominated by Republican presidents. Chuck Schumer was the first out of the gate with a proposal and they came up with a doozy of a name for the bill. Called "The No Kings Act," the bill has already garnered more than two dozen cosponsors. (Of course, they are all Democrats.) The bill seeks to declare that neither Presidents nor Vice Presidents have immunity from criminal conduct. It's a pointless bit of political theater, but they are clearly hoping that it will impress a few undecided voters in the swing states. (The Guardian)

Chuck Schumer will introduce a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president.

The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.

“Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court’s ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented,” the Senate majority leader said in a statement. “With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation – and a constitutional authority – to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch.”

The bill seeks to stipulate that Congress, rather than the Supreme Court, has the authority to determine to whom federal criminal laws are applied. That's a glaring constitutional overreach coming right out of the gate. Congress is tasked with writing and passing laws. The executive branch is empowered to approve and enact the laws. Judgments about the constitutionality of the laws and how they are applied are left to the judicial branch. Only rarely does Congress ever specify who any given law may or may not apply to because our laws are intended to apply equally to one and all. The notable exception is when age limits are specified under certain laws, recognizing the differences in potential culpability between adults and minors. That would not apply in this case.

The next major stumbling block here is the stated premise that presidents "do not have immunity from criminal conduct." But the Supreme Court granted no such blanket immunity to presidents. The ruling was carefully tailored to state that any immunity enjoyed by a president only applies to actions taken as part of their official duties. Anything that a president does as part of their official duties is, by definition, not a criminal action. I will be the first to concede that a lot of work remains to be done in defining specifically which actions qualify as a president's "official duties" and the court is going to need to help sort out that question at some point.

Some things should be obvious, however. Signing or vetoing properly passed legislation is clearly an official duty no matter what you may think of the law in question. The same goes for granting pardons and delivering the State of the Union address. All of those things are documented in the Constitution. Other actions are a bit more hazy in these terms. Is delivering a speech at a rally that is unrelated to the State of the Union an official duty or a political action? It's hard to say. Issuing orders to the American military by way of the Secretary of Defense is an official duty because the President is also the Commander-in-Chief. But what if he orders the military to kill an American citizen abroad the way Obama did? Was that an official duty? We're getting into some murky waters at this point.

The entire discussion will almost certainly remain hypothetical. I don't see how this bill attracts 60 votes in the Senate and it would be dead on arrival even if it made it to the House. In the likely fictional scenario where it passes and is signed into law, someone (most likely a Republican at this point) would be found to have the standing to challenge it and the case would eventually land in the lap of the Supreme Court. Do you really think they would gut their own power and surrender it to the legislative branch when their entire job is to ensure the constitutionality of all of our laws? Pull the other one. It's got bells on it.