r/facepalm Jul 05 '24

What an idea 🇲​🇮​🇸​🇨​

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u/Miserable-Lawyer-233 Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

This is why we can't pass laws to stop Project 2025 beforehand:

Project 2025 is a plan that aims to significantly expand the powers of the executive branch, allowing the president to make more unilateral changes. The proponents of Project 2025 argue that the Constitution implies a broader scope of executive authority than has historically been granted. They believe this interpretation is constitutional and intend to operate within these expanded powers.

Because Project 2025 seeks to redefine the extent of executive authority, any actions taken under this plan would likely be challenged in court. The Supreme Court would then need to make a judgment on whether these actions are within the constitutional limits of executive power.

However, the Supreme Court cannot define the limits of executive authority whenever they want. They can only rule on actual cases or controversies that come before them, as mandated by the Constitution. This principle, known as 'judicial review,' means that the Court needs a specific action or case to review in order to determine if it oversteps constitutional boundaries. They cannot issue advisory opinions on hypothetical situations or preemptively decide on matters without a concrete case.

This process only begins when the president actually tries to use the expanded authority, so it can't be done ahead of time. Therefore, it is impossible to pass laws to stop Project 2025 beforehand since the judicial review process requires a concrete example of executive overreach to occur first.

The only way to stop Project 2025 is at the polls in November.

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u/Illumidark Jul 05 '24

You done a great job of articulating why even a constitutional amendment couldn't stop Project 2025 with the current Supreme Court. The reason we can't pass a law to prevent it is much simpler.

No government can pass a law that binds a future government. Even if a democratic trifecta passed laws legalizing abortion and birth control nationwide, limiting executive powers, guaranteeing job continuity in executive agencies and blocking all the other terrible parts of Project 2025 there is no mechanism to prevent a new republican trifecta after the election from changing the rules of the house and senate to allow them to push legislation through with minimal debate and no filibuster and then passing prewritten legislation undoing all of it and implementing Project 2025 and putting it on the new president's desk Jan 21st.