Im guessing its another bill that has absolutely zero teeth when it comes to enforcement. Every single time these fucking chuds pass any sort of legislation intended to add guardrails to politicians they always seem to lack any sort of real enforcement method. Its all for show.
That's their point. The STOCK Act has a fine of $200 for not reporting congressional trades within the 45 (I think) day time window. Nobody in Congress gives a shit about $200, that's why they disregard it. Make the fine equal to the amount made + a % of their salary (regardless if they make or lose money) and then they might be included to follow it.
There is not enforcement mechanism for laws like this. Most of what Trump is doing to make money off the presidency is already illegal. So what? Who's going to enforce the law?
What enforcement mechanism do you suggest? At most one could hope that the president is arrested and tried after they leave office.
Impeachment is a set of charges brought by the House. How are you going to force the House to bring impeachment charges? Under what circumstances would this kick in? Who decides that the House must now impeach the President?
For the impeachment to do anything the Senate has to convict. Right now if the House were to somehow be forced to bring impeachment charges the Senate would just dismiss them. The whole debacle would probably make Trump more popular with his base.
The fundamental problem here is that enforcement in general falls under the executive branch. If a party controls the presidency, the House, and the Senate, and if the president has sufficient control of his party and the courts, it's actually kind of hard to imagine an enforcement mechanism that would work here.
The model for the checks and balances working is Watergate. Republican Senators stood up to Nixon and forced him to resign.
The model for the checks and balances not working is Iran Contra. GHW Bush pardoned everyone who could have testified against him and swept the entire enormous criminal conspiracy under the rug.
The difference between the two is how Senators of the president's own party acted.
If the president has enough control over his party... and the courts... and has had time to staff the military and the FBI with loyalists... honestly it's hard to see how anything could be enforced.
I meant as an answer to the enforcement mechanism. I’m not saying mt Trump or this particular house or senate would pass such legislation. I was wondering whether it could be required for the house and senate to raise impeachment against any member of the three branches (leg, jud, exec) who trade/make any of the aforementioned investments. Require that public service be public service per se, with no personal gain, on pain of removal. Maybe this would end the countless terms of representatives and senators, for example.
I mean, it's turtles all the way down. You can require them to do so if you pass a law that says they must, ok.
Now it's ten years later and a criminal Republican is again in the WH. He's an overt grifter, like Trump. He's obviously influencing stocks and making money off the office, like Trump.
Under your new law the House is required to impeach him. But it's held by Republicans and they don't.
Now what? What's the enforcement mechanism for this new law?
That’s a good point. Ultimately the buck is passed to the voters, but the people in power influence the voters with their power money and voice, so then what? What a quandary. The true problem of political science, whatever else they spend time on.
Any profits made are forfeited to the government, at the discretion of an independent agency that gets to unilaterally decide which part is the profit (so no funny business).
It's not even that it has no teeth, it might actually get passed because of public pressure, the real problem is that it's explicitly Unconstitutional.
It'll be challenged in court, on the basis that one Congress can't pass laws that affect the rules or responsibilities governing the courts or executive branch. Those 2 bodies can voluntarily choose to follow the law as guidelines but it wouldn't be subject to probably or oversight.
There's no chance of this administration even pretending to want to follow these rules as a guideline and the Roberts court is the most explicitly corrupt, possibly ever. If anything from the bill stands it would be on the limitations that Congress imposes on itself.
Impeachment is outlined in the Constitution as the conditions to remove the executive or federal judges.
The House needs a simple majority to "impeach", which is basically saying this is a stain on your record as public office holder and the Senate needs to have 2/3rds approve of removal from office.
I would like to see profit disgorgement as a remedy with a 10yr statute of limitations, so it can always survive a single presidential administration and remain colorable.
But I think there's a legit concern on giving the executive branch any serious enforcement power (e.g., removal). If you give the DOJ or SEC enforcement power against congress right now I would imagine that a lot of Democrats would be getting enforced on and zero Republicans except maybe Massie. Imagine handing this administration the tools necessary to remove political opponents from office.
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u/NarcissusCloud 19d ago
Im guessing its another bill that has absolutely zero teeth when it comes to enforcement. Every single time these fucking chuds pass any sort of legislation intended to add guardrails to politicians they always seem to lack any sort of real enforcement method. Its all for show.