“Senate Republicans tried to write Donald Trump’s contempt for the courts into law — gutting judicial enforcement, defying the Constitution, and bulldozing the very rule of law that forms our democracy,” Schumer said in a statement. “It was nothing short of an assault on the system of checks and balances that has anchored this nation since its founding, and a brazen attempt crown Trump king.” — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
Senate votes to let Trump go unchecked
With an intimidated Congressional majority unwilling to stand up to even the most egregious actions by the Trump administration, it falls to the courts to protect the rights of vulnerable Americans.
A provision in the “Big Ugly Bill” — the budget reconciliation bill passed by the Senate last Tuesday — would make that nearly impossible.
The provision requires anyone suing the federal government for a violation of their rights to post enormous bonds to cover any potential costs to the government before a court could issue an order that would stop that violation.
Only billionaires and massive corporations would have the means to seek justice. The right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, enshrined in the First Amendment, would be denied to ordinary Americans.
The good news was that the Senate parliamentarian has determined that the provision violates the so-called “Byrd Rule,” which restricts the content of reconciliation legislation. The reconciliation process protects the Big Ugly Bill from a filibuster, and the majority does not have the 60 votes required to avoid one.
However, Republicans refused to allow a bipartisan meeting specifically on the use of “current policy.” They maintained that the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has the sole authority to determine which accounting method can be used to pass legislation.
“Chair Graham has set that we will be using current policy baseline, therefore, no [reconciliation] rules are violated as Dems have suggested,” a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told HuffPost.
“I’m not the first chairman to change the baseline for different reasons,” Graham said Sunday.
Thune has promised not to eliminate the filibuster; on the other, he has been known to ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling.
According to Igor Bobic of HuffPost, “Republicans blocked the parliamentarian from ruling on the matter to avoid having to overrule her likely adverse opinion on the Senate floor. Senate GOP leaders repeatedly vowed that they would never do so, and they probably wouldn’t have the votes to do it anyway.”
“What they did instead on Monday was vote to support Graham’s authority as chairman of the Budget committee to use ‘current policy’ in reconciliation.”
“Democrats were furious and said that Republicans were going “nuclear” by blowing up the filibuster rules. Many Senate Democrats have already come out in support of eliminating the filibuster outright, and the GOP’s latest moves are likely to evoke retaliation and hasten its demise in the coming years.”
The National Urban League is among the scores of individuals and organizations who have filed at least 300 lawsuits against the Trump administration. Federal courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s actions at least 198 times. But the courts would be powerless to stop even blatantly violations of the Constitution unless the plaintiffs are outrageously wealthy.
Most of us learned in elementary school about the separation of powers. The legislative branch makes the laws. The executive branch enforces the laws. The judicial branch interprets the laws.
But the Trump administration wants all these powers for itself. The Senate decided to not abode by the oath each Senator has sworn and defend the American people from a would-be dictatorship.
Marc Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban league