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[-] logicbomb@lemmy.world 138 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] docAvid@midwest.social 18 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] kool_newt@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There is no way to make any of this work. Nobody should have any power. (edited)

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago
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this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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