Fifty House Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) have sponsored a bill that would form a commission to assess President Donald Trump's mental fitness for office, pursuant to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I mean, it’s moderately encouraging to see Dems doing something to fight Trump, but Congress doesn’t have the authority to utilize the mechanisms in the 25th amendment to remove Trump. They can issue articles of impeachment (again), but there are too many conservative senators and representatives protecting Trump for that to be viable, either.
This bill won’t go anywhere, and even if it did pass, it wouldn’t have any effect.
This is slightly incorrect. Congress can pass a law forming a body which can then determine if the president is unable to perform their duties and invoke section 4 of the 25th amendment.
Passing such a law would almost certainly require a veto override, and even then, Congress would still need a two thirds majority of both houses to make section four stick.
This bill’s primary purpose is to force Republicans to be on record that they are just fine with whatever unhinged things Trump is doing. Just like the war powers bills.
At this point, most of the power they have is performative. They can’t actually do much of anything, but they can make noise. It’s nice to see them doing that. The only shot they have at convincing the MAGA politicians to flip is by flipping public opinion more than it already is.
Even then, I’m not sure it would matter. What are people in red states going to do? Vote for a Democrat!? The mere thought of such a thing!
If there were viable candidates available to actually promote it might happen. I know plenty of people in a red state that were talking about Sanders when he ran. Instead you have the Senate race in NC where during the primary Roy Cooper only ran on “Make Stuff Cost Less” (his actual fucking only campaign proposal at the time to lower food/grocery prices). Luckily he has updated his page with healthcare and utilities now.
I mean, it’s moderately encouraging to see Dems doing something to fight Trump, but Congress doesn’t have the authority to utilize the mechanisms in the 25th amendment to remove Trump. They can issue articles of impeachment (again), but there are too many conservative senators and representatives protecting Trump for that to be viable, either.
This bill won’t go anywhere, and even if it did pass, it wouldn’t have any effect.
This is slightly incorrect. Congress can pass a law forming a body which can then determine if the president is unable to perform their duties and invoke section 4 of the 25th amendment.
Passing such a law would almost certainly require a veto override, and even then, Congress would still need a two thirds majority of both houses to make section four stick.
This bill’s primary purpose is to force Republicans to be on record that they are just fine with whatever unhinged things Trump is doing. Just like the war powers bills.
At this point, most of the power they have is performative. They can’t actually do much of anything, but they can make noise. It’s nice to see them doing that. The only shot they have at convincing the MAGA politicians to flip is by flipping public opinion more than it already is.
Even then, I’m not sure it would matter. What are people in red states going to do? Vote for a Democrat!? The mere thought of such a thing!
If there were viable candidates available to actually promote it might happen. I know plenty of people in a red state that were talking about Sanders when he ran. Instead you have the Senate race in NC where during the primary Roy Cooper only ran on “Make Stuff Cost Less” (his actual fucking only campaign proposal at the time to lower food/grocery prices). Luckily he has updated his page with healthcare and utilities now.
That’s fair, and I agree it’s better to see dems doing anything, if only for the novelty of it.