Can POTUS threaten SCOTUS justices with forced retirement to achieve favorable opinion on constitutionality of his policies? Rephrased the original question because, as the commenters pointed out, the term &quot;blackmail&quot; doesn't apply here at all. About a week ago Biden made two seemingly unrelated statements: &quot;No amendment is absolute&quot;, regarding his anti-gun efforts that are bound for the Supreme Court eventually. Announcing a commission to investigate the possibility of the Supreme Court expansion and term limits on the justices. Now, suppose that I enter a convenience store owned by my brother, see an open register with $100 and $10 bills, and tell the cashier &quot;So much cash in the register! I know it's your job to guard it, but your vision is not absolute.&quot; Then, after a brief pause, I add &quot;My brother and I are going to be discussing the staffing changes around here. We need fresh blood, so we are going to hire more people, but also let go a few. But we have not decided that yet, just talkings things over, it may go either way.&quot; Then I pause again, look over the open register, lick my lips, and add &quot;Nobody legitimately needs $100 bills. $10 is a perfectly sufficient denomination for anybody.&quot; Two questions now: would the above conversation in a convenience store be regarded as an attempted extortion, and, if so, wouldn't Biden's pressure on SCOTUS be too?
The president is not permitted to blackmail the Supreme Court, but what you've described isn't blackmail. Blackmail is a threat to expose someone's crimes. You're probably thinking of something more like extortion, which is outlawed under 18 U.S. Code § 875: Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. There are three problems with your theory I see right away: With the facts: As you noted, the President's statements were &quot;seemingly unrelated,&quot; which is essentially an admission that there's no indication one has anything to do with the other. Under those circumstances, you can't establish that he's making any kind of threat. With the statute: &quot;Extortion&quot; is generally understood to refer not merely to a threat to do something unpleasant. Instead, extortion is inducing another person to turn over property by the wrongful use of force, violence, or fear. There's no property at play here, and it's not unlawful to study changes to the court (nor would it be unlawful to actually make changes to the Court, which the president doesn't even have power to do anyway). With the First Amendment: The President has a First Amendment right to advocate for changes to gun laws, and for changes to the composition of the Supreme Court. That right does not evaporate when it is informed by the court's conduct. So the Biden situation is not really a good fit with the hypothetical you've described, which presents a much stronger factual basis from which to find a threat. Because it also appears you're using wrongfully inducing fear of economic injury to obtain another person's property, and because you have no right to do so, you would be liable for extortion, while the President would not. EDIT: Although the top-line questions has been reframed, I'll just note that the answer remains basically the same. Bearing in mind that the president has no power to force any Supreme Court justice into retirement, one might rephrase the question this way: &quot;If the Court rules that a constitutional amendment has Meaning X, can the president threaten to support a constitutional amendment?&quot; The answer should be obvious: The president is free to support policies to change the constitution, at any time, for any reason.
The Supreme Court does not handle hypotheticals. The court has interpreted Article III Section 2 Clause 1 of the Constitution, the Case or Controversy Clause as a limit on the powers of the judicial branch. The courts have jurisdiction over various types of cases and controversies but only those listed in the Constitution. This limits courts to hearing actual cases and prevents them from issuing advisory opinions. Additionally, in order to bring a case, the plaintiff must have standing to bring the suit. You can't sue the government just because you don't like a law (well, you can, your suit will just be dismissed because it lacks standing). You have to show That you have been, or will imminently be, injured (injury-in-fact) That there is a direct correlation between that injury and the law (causation) And that a favorable court decision will redress the injury (redressability) As a practical matter, the courts are already overwhelmed by the number of actual cases that come up and the Supreme Court can only hear a tiny fraction of the cases they are asked to hear. If they added the ability to hear hypothetical cases as well, the court could easily be overwhelmed by Senators and Representatives asking them to weigh in on every remotely controversial bill or amendment before Congress or interest groups bringing cases for speculative grievances.
The most relevant federal Obstruction of Justice type is from 18 USC 1505: Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress— I'm not sure if passed Articles of Impeachment count as an "inquiry", and I'm not sure whether failing to "send" them to the other house is "corruptly impeding". Even if those two conditions are met, members of Congress are immune to judicial process for acts taken while they are in session, as part of the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 6, Clause 1): ...shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. So, if the person in question is not a member of Congress acting in their official capacity and intentionally endeavors to prevent passed Articles of Impeachment from being sent from the House to the Senate (e.g. a courier intentionally failing to deliver them, or an IT person preventing the electronic form from being copied into the Senate's database), I do not know whether that could be considered Obstruction of Justice, as I doubt such a situation has ever been adjudicated. Given the publicity of the proceedings, such an impediment would probably be found out or overcome so quickly that no one would be inclined to do more than fire the perpetrator.
Although the constitution doesn't explicitly require your vote to be equal in strength, surely the founders intended with the word 'vote' that you at least get to choose who you vote for. Quite the contrary. The founders specifically intended that smaller states should have disproportionate strength - they knew exactly what they were doing. This was one of the major design goals of the Constitution and is reflected in several other areas (e.g. the structure of the Senate); the smaller states wouldn't have agreed to join the Union if such concessions hadn't been made. There's a general principle in law that "the specific overrides the general". You're not going to get anywhere by trying to read into the word "vote" when there is explicit text saying something different. If the founders intended the word "vote" to imply "equal power for everyone", then why would they have specified, in great detail, a system which does exactly the opposite? For that matter, the founders didn't particularly intend that the people be able to vote for president at all! Article II, Section 1 says only that "each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors..." There is no requirement that the state should hold an election to determine the appointment of the electors. According to Wikipedia, five states initially had the electors chosen by the state legislature, without having the people vote at all, and South Carolina continued to use this system until 1860. The 14th Amendment, section 2, appears to require that all eligible voters (male and 21 at the time, since modified by the 19th and 26th Amendments) be allowed to vote for their electors, but even there the wording is "any election" which appears to leave open the possibility of having no election at all. (It hasn't been tested as far as I know.) I think that your proposed lawsuit would be quickly dismissed, possibly as "frivolous".
There is a potentially infinite regress of questions regarding the constitutionality of restrictions imposed under these "emergency" circumstances. The basic legal principle is clearly established: laws restricting fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny. The specific details of a particular law and surrounding circumstances have yet to be discovered by the courts. If it is necessary to the purpose of saving lives that meetings of more than 10 people be prohibited, then the "compelling interest" test probably has been satisfied. That is basically a medical question, and the courts have a limited interest in scientific controversies, instead they are interested in whether people who make legal decisions do so rationally (is it reasonable to think that such limits would accomplish that compelling government end). Is it reasonable to think that restrictions lasting two months are necessary? The Black Death lasted at least 4 years. In the current circumstances (very limited hard knowledge this disease), it's hard to say what government actions could not be excused based on necessity. Summary execution is, at least in the current knowledge context, probably not going to pass strict scrutiny. As already explained in other thread on the topic, there is no "churches are above the law" constitutional provision. The appropriate question in the Florida case is not about the First Amendment, it is about the Due Process clauses – is the arrest lawful? We will, no doubt, see. On the face of it, he violated the law, so he can be arrested. I understand that there is a team poking holes in the order.
Speech of foreign nationals is not treated the same as that of citizens. In the case Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of various statutory limits on campaign spending. Some parts of the law were upheld, others were overturned in 1st Amendment grounds. They upheld limits on contributions to candidates and volunteers' incidental expenses, and overturned limits on expenditures. In the decision, the court observed that [n]either the right to associate nor the right to participate in political activities is absolute and "governmental 'action which may have the effect of curtailing the freedom to associate is subject to the closest scrutiny'" The court stated that Even a 'significant interference with protected rights of political association' may be sustained if the State demonstrates a sufficiently important interest and employs means closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment of associational freedoms. This is reasonably-standard strict scrutiny boilerplate language: what it remind you is that no Constitutionally-protected right is absolute, and all rights are subject to limitation, when that right conflicts with a compelling government interest. In the case of the federal contribution laws, that interest is the prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial contributions on candidates' positions and on their actions if elected to office. The court then found that under the rigorous standard of review established by our prior decisions, the weighty interests served by restricting the size of financial contributions to political candidates are sufficient to justify the limited effect upon First Amendment freedoms caused by the $1,000 contribution ceiling. 52 USC 30121 imposes a prohibition which, if placed on US persons, would be held to violate the 1st Amendment. That law prohibits, among others, a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election by "a foreign national", defined to not include lawful permanent residents but otherwise includes all foreign citizens and entities. The constitutionality of this law was challenged on First Amendment grounds but affirmed in Bluman v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 800 F. Supp. 2d 281 (written by Kavanaugh in his previous job), and upheld in a one-sentence affirmation by SCOTUS. So, 1st Amendment rights of foreign nationals are not protected to the same extent as those of US citizens. It should be noted that the court also (expressly) did not decide if Congress could also constitutionally ban contributions by LPRs, or could prohibit foreign nationals from engaging in other forms of speech (issue advocacy and speaking on issues of public policy) – that matter was left undecided.
One path would be to get compliance, by demonstrating that it is legally required. The best evidence that he is legally required to wear a mask is this recent mandate from the Department of Public Health. However, I cannot find a corresponding executive order, which may be in a generic form empowering CDPH to issue orders. Any imposition of penalties for violation must be publicly announced and rest on legislative authority. The mandate is not generally enforced, except in a few cases regarding bars and restaurants. There are various persuasive avenues that you could pursue, such as asking CDPH to come talk to him (unlikely, but you could try), complaining to the property owner, appealing to local social media to apply pressure (possibly putting yourself at legal risk for defamation, if you make a false statement). There are two more involved legal actions to contemplate. One is to terminate the lease and move elsewhere. This would likely result in an action to collect the remainder of the rent, but the strategy would be to argue that the manager has interfered with your private enjoyment of the premise. A second, highly improbable, is to sue the manager and get an enforceable court order requiring him to wear a mask. Courts have a prejudice against ordering people to take actions when other options exist (terminating the lease, monetary compensation). It could be an interesting but expensive test case to see if you could get a judge to order the manager to wear a mask. So yes they are obligated to wear masks, but legal enforcement is going to be difficult at best.
The main legal impediment to such action is that nonviolent political actions are not rebellion or insurrection. Interpreting the meaning of these terms arises in litigating insurance claims (where there is often a clause denying coverage in case of insurrection or rebellion), e.g. Younis Bros. v. CIGNA Worldwide Ins. where the matter was the Liberian civil war. Neither "insurrection" nor "rebellion" are defined under the statute, therefore they have their ordinary meanings. The ordinary meaning of "insurrection" does not include Congress overstepping its authority (if that happened), nor, in general, would it include an illegal act by a public official. Reference to 18 USC 2381, 2382, 2383 2384 is common in suits files under sovereign citizen theories of law, which courts deftly dispose of because the plaintiff has no standing in criminal matters. However, various Freedom of Information cases involving FBI investigations such as Shaw v. FBI, Friedman v. FBI, 605 F. Supp. 306 have suggested that the FBI can investigate a possible violation of 18 USC 2383 which does not involve open civil war. Various cases like Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (Scalia dissent), Padilla v. Hanft have supported the proposition that persons engaged in open war against the US can be prosecuted under this section. As far as I can determine, no case has supported the notion that a nonviolent action exceeding legal authority constitutes violation of that law. In US v. Silverman, 248 F.2d 671 the court mentions that "conspiring to overthrow the Government by force and violence" is prohibited by that statute. Furthermore, since the actions in this specific instance involve stuff that happened on the floor of the House, they are constitutionally completely immune. Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution says of Congress They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. So while a Congressman can be arrested for racketeering or breach of the peace traveling to a session, they cannot be tried for what they say in session. I think they could be arrested for assassinating the Speaker while in session, but not for advocating assassination in a speech or debate.