No Kings: A Campaign to Protect Our Democracy

September 11, 2024

No Kings: A Campaign to Protect Our Democracy

Public Citizen News / September-October 2024

By Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert

This article appeared in the Sept/Oct 2024 edition of Public Citizen News. Download the full edition here.

On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court eviscerated one of the founding premises of American democracy: The idea that no one, not even the President, is above the law.

The Court's 6-3 decision in Trump v. United Stateseffectively gives presidents complete immunity for any "official" act-no matter how brazenly corrupt the motivation behind that act nor how catastrophic its consequences.

The decision gives allfuture presidents the kind of near-absolute power our country fought a revolution to end. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her scathing dissent, Trump v. United Stateswill have "disastrous consequences for the Presidency and for our democracy."

And that's why Public Citizen has launched a campaign to overturn this travesty of a decision with a constitutional amendment. (Because the Supreme Court based its ruling on purportedly constitutional grounds, rather than through interpreting a law, Congress can only overturn it with a constitutional amendment.)

Under this travesty of a Supreme Court ruling, for example, a president could take bribes in exchange for handing out pardons … and be immune from criminal prosecution. A president could order Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, or anyone else, for that matter, including you … and be immune from prosecution. A president could even order a military coup to remain in power … andnot be subject to criminal accountability.

Describing exactly those three hypothetical actions, Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent what would happen if anyone tried to bring criminal charges: "Immune, immune, immune."

If those scenarios strike as you as unlikely, just keep in mind that presidents have never before had the freedom to operate in such a fashion. Now, they will.

We can hope that future presidents won't take advantage of this newfound power..But the whole point of our constitutional structure is that we shouldn't just hope that political leaders won't abuse their power. We're supposed to have structures and rules in place that prevent misuse and hold accountable those who do abuse their power.

Constitutional amendments to overturn this decision have already been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the ranking member on the House Administrative Committee, and Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. We're coordinating with both offices in the long work ahead to get an amendment passed.

Going forward, we have our work cut out for us - by design, it's not easy to win constitutional amendments.

Here's the plan:

• Explain the impact of Trump v. United Statesto the American people through a massive and sustained education campaign.
• Working through the Not Above the Law Coalition that we help spearhead, pull together an expanding coalition of citizen groups to support the No Kings amendment.
• Lobby on Capitol Hill to get members of Congress on board for the No Kings amendment.
• Launch a sustained grassroots effort to drive the process forward.

At the end of the day, we know all of those strands are vitally important - but that we won't truly move forward without that grassroots mobilization.

This is ambitious and hard and challenging - but we've done this work before. On the day the Supreme Court issued its Citizens Uniteddecision in 2010, we launched a campaign for an amendment to overturn that decision. When we started, even our closest allies said the effort was "unrealistic." We ignored them and got to work.

A decade and a half later - we have to be honest, these things take time - we've done far more than almost anyone believed possible. More than 800 cities and towns have endorsed the amendment, as have 22 states. I've testified in Congress on behalf of an amendment and we won majority vote in the U.S. senate. All Democratic presidential candidates since 2016 have supported an amendment. We have a ways to go, but the work we've done has been astounding.

Winning an amendment to overturn Trump v. United Statesis going to be a lot of work, also, but it's going to be much easier than the effort to overturn Citizens United.

Our previous work normalized the idea of constitutional amendments.

And, in time, once they get over the impact of the decision on the criminal cases against Donald Trump, many Republicans are going to turn against the decision, which simply gives presidents far, far too much power.

So here we are: Trump v. United Stateshas granted U.S. presidents the type of immunity associated with kings, not elected officials. That gives each of us a choice: Do we consent to be subjects of a de facto king or give in to a self-fulfilling prophecy of despair? Or do we stand for what we know to be right, even if the fight just got even harder?

For Public Citizen, and we know for you, the answer is clear: We stand and fight. We organize day after day after day. We bring the same force and resolve that has kept us powering forward-and winning, even when the chances of success seemed remote-for more than half a century. We're going to take on this campaign and win.

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