Why are the promises President Trump made on the travel ban not relevant to determine whether the executive order itself is constitutional? Today (26th of June 2018), the SCOTUS decided that the Sept. 2017 Executive Order banning travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States (the "Travel Ban") does not violate the 1st Amendment of the US constitution. Notably, the SCOTUS declared that the campaign promises that the President made during his campaign rallies of banning all Muslims from entering the country (paraphrasing here) should not be taken into account when deciding whether this order is violating the 1st Amendment. As someone who doesn't live in the USA and isn't a constitutional lawyer, I don't really understand that. If I say "I'm going to kill the guy who slept with my wife" and 3 days later I jump out from behind a tree and kill him, that's considered premeditation, which increases the severity of the murder charge. However, if the President says "I'm going to ban all Muslims" and then a year or so later does something to that effect, why is it not taken into account?
Because the nations that made the list (which was modified at the time of the SCOTUS hearing) were selected based on their ability to provide the US with documentation for vetting of immigrants (or rather their lack of an ability), not religion, and the courts give the legislature (Congress) and the executive branch (President) wide discretion when matters of security are involved as they are related to foreign relations where the Judiciary have very limited powers. The specifics of the law which the Executive order modifies do not limit the President beyond a bona fide reason for which the selection was made. The court also ruled that the document contains no mention of any religion specifically or any matters pertaining to religion, and that several nations on the list have no Muslim Majority (they cite 2, but I am only aware of Venezuela being on the list). Additionally, the nation of Chad was removed from the list after their standards were brought up to scratch. In the original opinion, they did say that the campaign remarks were considered in that they pointed to the plaintiff's standing in the case (you need to show a potential harm is inflicted on you by the law in order to get a court case. Or in other words, I cannot ask the court to hear a case on rights of a vampire, because I am not a vampire) but found that the request to probe for malice in the minds of the President and his staff was not an area they could tread as there was a good reason for the law and several prominent Muslim Majority nations were not included. Basically, if the government could show that the order was made by some objective standards that neither favored nor disfavored a religion, then it is not a violation of the first amendment. For five of the justices, the government satisfied this requirement.* *Note, I am still reading through the ruling... my PDF of it keeps crashing and I lose my place.
Perhaps. The relevant law is assembled into notes on 3 USC 102. The original act of 1963 defines President-elect in this manner: (c) The terms 'President-elect' and 'Vice-President-elect' as used in this Act shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the office of President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained by the Administrator following the general elections held to determine the electors of President and Vice President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 1 and 2. There is no specific statutory provision directing the Administrator of the GSA to ascertain who is that President-Elect. The administration is apparently taking a position similar to that taken by the Clinton administration, that states determine who has been elected, and the states have not officially determined who has been elected: nor has a candidate conceded. If a court orders the Administrator to make the ascertainment, I expect that the administration would appeal the ruling up to the Supreme Court. This letter, addressed to the Administrator, gives the legal rationale.
While there is an act that President Trump and his supporters are citing, titled the Presidential Records Act (PRA), to accuse House Speaker Pelosi of breaking federal law, it is important to understand what actions the law accounts for. The act mandates that the President of the United States preserve records and other laws governing the federal government. This serves as a form of checks and balances to prevent the president and his advisers from shielding documentary information from public view. The act is fairly new, as it was passed in 1981. It is important to realize that this law does not apply to print outs or widely circulated documents. Moreover, the copy of the State of the Union that she was given is not a governmental record. Therefore, House Speaker Pelosi did not violate the Presidential Records Act, nor any other federal law. However, it is open to debate whether Pelosi's action was appropriate, though I will not supply my opinion on that matter.
The comments have already pointed out that the President of the United States is still a citizen, and all of the rights of a citizen are still protected for them. Additionally, the Administration is allowed to take policy positions which are antagonistic to a person or group's cause, even if that group is practicing their rights to express their views legally. To give a different example, the President and his administration may denounce the position of a group of Neo-Nazis marching legally. So, any argument that the President is acting in an official capacity while making antagonistic comments also probably fails, as the Administration is allowed to take a position on any issue they deem worth taking a stand on. As noted in another answer and in comments, the applicable laws appear to be 18 U.S. Code § 227, which provides for punishment of government officials who attempt to influence employment decisions through official acts for political purposes, and 42 U.S. Code § 1983, which provides for civil action when a person deprives, or causes the deprivation of, another person's rights under color of law. 18 U.S. Code § 227 likely does not apply for two reasons The President may show that his conduct was not purely for political purpose The official statements made do not qualify as official acts per McDonnell v. United States, as they are not a decision or action on a "question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy"; that question or matter must involve a formal exercise of governmental power, and must also be something specific and focused that is "pending" or "may by law be brought" before a public official 42 U.S. Code § 1983 might apply if the official statements were found to be acting under color of law, but I think the statements made so far will fail to meet the qualifications for this statute. Blair v. Bethel School District gives three qualifications for conduct that would allow recovery under this statute: (1) he engaged in constitutionally protected activity; (2) as a result, he was subjected to adverse action by the defendant that would chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in the protected activity; and (3) there was a substantial causal relationship between the constitutionally protected activity and the adverse action. The President's and Administration's official speech appears to fail the second criteria. First, it is questionable whether it qualifies as an "Adverse Action" - in Blair, as well as Hartman v. Moore and Gibson v. United States, the adverse action against the Plaintiff caused actual damage or indignity. However, even if we assume the official speech qualifies as an adverse action for the purposes of the statute, it still appears to be permissible for effectively the same reasons as the first and third arguments presented in the decision: First, the adverse action Blair complains of was a rather minor indignity, and de minimis deprivations of benefits and privileges on account of one's speech do not give rise to a First Amendment claim. The actual effect of the Administration's speech has a minimal direct effect on the players it speaks against. The decision further states: The most familiar adverse actions are “exercise[s] of governmental power” that are “regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature” and have the effect of punishing someone for his or her speech Official speech by the Administration is not "regulatory, proscriptive, or compulsory in nature." While this is not a complete definition for "adverse action," it gives a sense of severity, which official speech does not appear to meet. Additionally, the President's right to speech, and the Administration's authority and need to make official speech as directed by the President is a competing interest in this case, as was the interest of the Board in Blair: Third, it is significant that Blair isn't the only party in this case whose interests implicate First Amendment concerns. To the contrary, we assume all of the Board members have a protected interest in speaking out and voting their conscience... The decision does note that: The point isn't that the vote against Blair was protected speech simply because it was expressive. Almost all retaliatory actions can be said to be expressive, including those that are manifestly unconstitutional. But, while Blair certainly had a First Amendment right to criticize Seigel and vote against his retention as superintendent, his fellow Board members had the corresponding right to replace Blair with someone who, in their view, represented the majority view of the Board. Similarly, it's probable that a court would find that the President's right to speech and their Administration's corresponding authority to speech against the players' right to protest is equally weighted or even weightier, such that stifling the official speech is as bad or worse than the alleged chilling effect of the speech. Some examples of things that clearly would fall afoul of 42 U.S. Code § 1983 would be the President or the Administration misappropriating funds to use to pay NFL teams not to hire players who kneel during the national anthem, or signing an Executive Order preventing players who kneel during the national anthem from playing - in both cases, they are taking actions which fall outside the powers of their office, which would qualify as acts made under color of law and clearly chill the players' First Amendment rights.
Actually this is the only SCOTUS ruling on Impeachment because of what it legally means with respect to SCOTUS and impeachment. Namely, Impeachment is a congressional power and not a judicial one that has no punishment beyond the removal from office upon conviction and that therefor it is not a matter that is Judicial. That is a fancy way to say that SCOTUS or any lower court may not hear appeals rising from the outcome of Impeachment. Because of this, it's unlikely to hear any SCOTUS case as to the matter of impeachment and the only outstanding question they could likely hear is "Who can hear an Impeachment Trial for the Vice President?" but thus far none of the 19 impeachment trials have heard involved a vice president. Nixon v. United States basically held that in matters of impeachment it is the court's position that it is likely to respond to this hypothetical with the legal ruling of "not my monkeys, not my circus" (note: not legal jargon). With that said, this makes the U.S. senate the highest court in the land when it comes to precedents set by impeachment cases. The very first person ever impeached was a U.S. Senator, who was expelled by the Senate the same day the House voted on Articles of Impeachment. The decision not to have the trial did establish some notable precedents: first, Impeachment and conviction are all about removing an officer from office and if at anytime before conviction the officer is removed by other means, the process is stopped as it is moot. Second, and more important, is that members of Congress are not "impeachable" officers as both houses have methods that allow them to expel members by vote. This means that the only people who can be impeached are executive officers (the person who is currently president, vice president, and cabinet secretaries, any other office that is appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate, and federal judges) and that a conviction of impeachment does not bar one from holding another federal office unless the senate enacts an additional punishment after the conviction barring that person from federal office. They cannot bar one from state office. Finally, House and Senate Rules have instructions for procedures in their part in impeachment. The commonality between both is that impeachment takes precidents over all regular buisness so once articles are put to the floor, there speaker must hold the vote with in a certain window of time (three days, I think) and the Senate must hold the trial as soon as possible, though will honor reasonable delays as per the impeached officer's right to delay. As a final note, and because it wasn't clear in the question Nixon v. United States is often confused with another case (United States v. Nixon). The latter one did indirectly relate to impeachment in that it was related to President Nixon handing over evidence to the comittee investigating possible impeachment articles against Nixon, and because of that ruling, Nixon handed over the evidence and later resigned to avoid the Impeachment. The former one not only didn't involve anything related Watergate, it also wasn't related to President Nixon at all, but a (former) Federal Judge Walter Nixon, and specifically was heard because Judge Nixon happened to be the first Judge impeached by a Senate commitee as the jury rather than the full Senate, following a rule change that only held full senate as jury for the President and Vice President and a committee for anyone else. The final rule is that only the President is constitutionally mandated to have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court act as the judge in an Impeachment trial, while the presiding officer for all other cases is either the Vice President (acting in his role as President of the Senate) or the President pro Tempore of the Senate (acting in his role of "Guy Keeping the Vice President's Seat in the Senate Rotunda Warm" (not technical Jargon)). Which is why the question of "who is the judge in impeachment of the Vice President?" a noodle baking question, and the answer differs from the Chief Justice to the Senate pr Tempore to the rarely serious argument of the Vice President himself. The best answer is that "It has never come up."
Your interpretation is correct. The constitution says that judges stay in office "until and unless they are impeached." That means that congress cannot impose a time limit on any judge's term of office. If it did so, it would be contrary to the constitution. The only grounds for removal are those to do with misbehavior. Therefore, judges have life tenure.
Before the election, can a lawsuit prevent the amendment question from being put on the ballot? No. Generally speaking, the constitutionality of an otherwise procedurally proper ballot initiative is not ruled upon until after it has passed (eliminating the need to rule unnecessarily on the constitutionality of failed initiatives). Of course, if someone tried to put it in the ballot when the existing law conditions for putting it on the ballot were not met (e.g. because a deadline for doing so wasn't met) that could be challenged in court by a party with standing to do so. If passed into the constitution, would a court still have the ability to rule the restrictions unconstitutional? Probably not. The constitution as newly adopted doesn't sound like it would forbid doing that. This seems to be the whole point of the constitutional amendment in the first place and it the amendment to the constition is approved, that requirement is gone.
The amendment restricts when a change in law takes effect. The amendment does not restrict all laws, just those &quot;varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives&quot;. A law could be passed this session automatically increasing (or decreasing) congressional pay by 5% per annum, and could take effect after the 2022 elections have taken place in November. Like all constitutional amendments, we do not get an authoritative interpretation of the meaning of the words until someone sues someone else and SCOTUS says what it means. Shaffer v. Clinton, 54 F. Supp. 2d 1014 is a case almost on point, precisely over whether COLAs violate the 27th Amendment. The Executive branch (defendants) sought dismissal and certain Congressmen and citizens (plaintiffs) sought summary judgment, &quot;asserting there is no genuine issue as to any material fact remaining in dispute and plaintiffs are entitled to judgment as a matter of law&quot;. The case was dismissed with prejudice without much mention of the merits the annual COLAs provided by the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 are not independent laws under the Twenty-seventh Amendment and that Adjustments to congressional salaries under the Ethics Reform Act are not discretionary acts of Congress. The adjustments are calculations performed by nonlegislative administrative staff, following a specific formula provided by Congress in the Act This provides a good basis for thinking that a future court would reach the same &quot;failure to state a claim&quot; dead end, but in lieu of something above the level of U.S. District Court, Colorado would be necessary to make the conclusion &quot;a matter of settled law&quot;. What you propose does not require making more than one law, and then a bunch of administrative calculations that does not involve Congress.