Dems Deal Historic Snub To Joe Biden, Will Try To Limit Presidential Powers With New Law
House Democrats just dealt Joe Biden a historic snub and announced they will push forward with their plan to try to limit presidential powers. The Dems say Trump abused his power and we need new laws to stop future abuses.
They want to limit the pardon powers of the presidency and give Congress more power to enforce subpoenas. They want to require presidential candidates to hand over their tax records and they want to extend the deadline for prosecuting former presidents and vice presidents for federal crimes committed before or during their time in office.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee are pushing these ‘reforms’ because Trump beat them at every turn. Trump used his power and the legal system correctly and the Dems can’t stand they lost so, in typical nonsensical fashion, they plan to limit Biden’s power.
Or is this attempt an admission that Trump will win again in 2024? It doesn’t really matter as Biden would be a fool to sign it. That said, Biden will face pressure from the left to sign it.
Biden would be in a tough spot because if he does sign it, that will be a tacit admission that he will lose in 2024 because they are doing this in fear of Trump’s return, and if he vetoes it the left will ruin him.
Also, some of the provisions are clearly against the constitution. And in reality, what is to stop a president from telling the other side to go pound sand? If there are not the votes to convict on impeachment, the president, whoever that is, will do what they want.
This is just more doomed virtue signaling from the left that will only box Biden into an untenable position leading to a red wave in 2022. The full list of what is in the law can be found below.
From Protect Democracy:
The Protecting Our Democracy Act (PODA) is an historic package of pro-democracy reforms to create or strengthen guardrails preventing the abuse of executive power, restore Congress as a meaningful check on executive authority, and reinvigorate Congress’s exercise of its own constitutional power. Protect Democracy strongly supports these vital reforms.
Without these important legislative measures, our democracy is at risk of backsliding into a more authoritarian form of government in which the president wields unchecked power — the very danger our constitutional system of checks and balances was designed to forestall.
The Protecting Our Democracy Act (PODA) tackles a dozen different topics, which are explained more fully in the accompanying tabs, including:
Limiting the president’s pardon power.
Extending the deadline for prosecuting former presidents and vice presidents for federal crimes committed before or during their time in office.
Enforcing the constitutional ban on presidents using the office to enrich themselves.
Boosting enforcement of congressional subpoenas.
Reasserting Congress’s power of the purse.
Mandating disclosure of contacts between the White House and Justice Department.
Strengthening protections for inspectors general.
Strengthening protections for federal whistleblowers.
Ensuring the Senate’s say in confirming executive branch officials.
Bolstering enforcement of the Hatch Act.
Ensuring access to transition resources following a presidential election.
Requiring transparency of tax records of presidential candidates.
Preventing foreign interference in elections.
Clarifying federal prohibitions on foreign assistance to campaigns.
The proposals respond to longstanding vulnerabilities in our democracy that have allowed for the aggrandizement of presidential power, many of which have been exploited over decades by presidents of both parties, and some of which reached new heights through the actions of the Trump administration. PODA responds to these abuses as lessons from which both parties must learn.
