Many are. This one is not. The President has sweeping pardon powers.
The solution is to strike the final phrase in Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” [1].
There isn’t a place for one-man pardons in a republic. If the courts overreach, address it through legislation. (Even the imperium-obsessed Romans didn’t give their dictators, much less consuls, automatic pardon power. Caesar had to get special legislation to overrule the law.)
With Presidents of both parties having so recently abused pardons, we may be in a place where a wave could pass a Constitutional amendment at the federal level, allowing it to be punted to the states.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_Stat...
We need a way to vote for popular ideas via referendum at the federal level. That might get it through.
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution” [1].
No President. No courts. Partisanship may work to our advantage in a divided government. What you would need, however, to reach two thirds is some members of the President’s party signing on. That could happen if the President is taking a dump in the polls, and the opposition looks likely (but isn’t yet assured) to gain the Presidency next term.
> We need a way to vote for popular ideas via referendum at the federal level
We need a plebiscite institution. But that can be done at state level for Constitutonal amendment approval. What we don’t want is direct democracy proposing amendments. California is a modern example of why republics are more stable than pure democracies, for anyone who forgot about Athens.
California is one state among 50. People using it as an example of some sort of government being bad are objectively in bad faith.
Please inform me how my state's citizen referendums are bad? We are about to have a vote on voter ID laws, which I do not approve of, but what's important is that the people who care are able to have their will made manifest, and it will actually go up for a vote.
Meanwhile nordic countries have vastly more direct democracies and don't have the problems you insist.
If you cannot make your argument without california, you do not have an argument, because california's shitty government predates democrat control, because it was always built as this crazy world where rich and connected people had control. California's government is built wrong, not because of democracy, but against it.
I think the opposite. That is exactly what we need. A lot of the problem we have come from the fact that the constitution speaks almost entirely in terms of what various government bodies do and provides no way for the people to directly override government actions they disagree with. This has led us to our current situation which is based on politicians exploiting loopholes (e.g., gerrymandering, stacking various judicial/administrative posts, manipulating voting laws, etc.) in order to preserve their position against potential electoral response.
In some cases these problems have been overcome or mitigated at the state level. . . via ballot measures. In California, for instance.
> California is a modern example of why republics are more stable than pure democracies, for anyone who forgot about Athens.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but from where I'm standing California looks a lot more sane and stable than the US as a whole.
speak for yourself. the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as evidenced by the current political climate in the US.
This is total crap. Tale of Two Cities is set against the backdrop of Britain’s reforms, in contrast to the French Revolution. America has peacefully seen through Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting, FDR’s New Deal and the Civil Rights Era, each peaceful restructurings of how our government works.
Revolutions transfer and consolidate power. Reforms broaden them. Those who miss this lesson of history and fall for glorified fictions of peasants’ revolts earn a consistent fate across millennia of human history.
Side note: strongly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6E4_Bcmscg&t=14s
The pardon system in particular really pisses me off. The argument that one rando at the top of the pyramid somehow magically knows better than the entire judicial system is such a load of horsecrap. For any injustice that the pardon system might be able to correct, it can and does just as easily introduce more injustices.
I understand it's debatably possible to prosecute the public corruption that motivated a pardon, even though the pardon act itself is unreviewable. I.e., the DoJ attempted a criminal bribery investigation of Bill Clinton's pardon of the donor Marc Rich,
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/15/us/us-is-beginning-crimin... ("U.S. is beginning criminal inquiry in pardon of Rich" (2001))
> "Some lawyers have said that proving such a case could be exceedingly difficult because bribery cases usually required the cooperation of one of the parties. Moreover, contributions to political parties or to Mr. Clinton's library foundation are legal, and the president's pardon authority is unreviewable."
I assume similar logic might apply to World Liberty Financial and Trump's CZ pardon.
