Representative Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, has come out in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment seeking to curb presidential immunity.
The Presidential Accountability Amendment was filed on Tuesday by Representative Joe Morelle, D-New York. Morelle first filed the proposed amendment last year.
The amendment would ensure no government official, including the president, vice president or congressional representatives, may be immune from criminal prosecution “on the sole ground that their alleged criminal act was within the conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority of their office or related to their official duties.”
The proposed amendment would also mandate that the president has no power to grant themselves “a reprieve or pardon for offenses against the United States.”
Morelle described the Presidential Accountability Amendment as a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States.
The case, in which U.S. President Donald Trump was accused by former Special Counsel for the U.S. Justice Department Jack Smith of using force and deceit to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, resulted in a 6-3 decision in the president’s favor.
The case’s majority ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that the president is entitled to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” and that the president “is entitled to at least presumptive immunity” from all prosecution for official acts committed during their term.
Sewell, ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Elections and cosponsor of Morelle’s proposed amendment, spoke in its favor at a Tuesday press conference held outside the U.S. Capitol Building.
“No one better understands our nation’s founding ideals than the people that I represent in Alabama’s 7th Congressional District,” Sewell said. “Afterall, it was the people of my district who gave us the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
“We understand the meaning of equality and justice for all. We understand the power of a vote and we understand that in America, no one is above the law,” she continued.
Sewell described the court’s verdict in Trump v. United States as “a devastating blow to our democracy” and argued the ruling “gives unyielding power to the Executive Branch.”
“Now more than ever we must take action to correct this injustice and restore the ideals upon which our founding fathers founded this nation,” she said. “Let me be clear, in the United States of America we are not ruled by a king we are governed by a president, and just like every American, that president has the obligation to follow our laws or face the consequences.”
Sewell and Morelle’s offices said the proposed amendment has garnered support from over 60 percent of the House Democratic Caucus. Sewell is currently the only federal lawmaker from Alabama who has cosponsored the amendment.
Sewell was among the original cosponsors of the amendment when it was first introduced by Morelle last year.
Meanwhile, Alabama Republicans such as U.S. Senator Katie Britt and U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville, alongside Representatives Barry Moore, Gary Palmer and former Representative Jerry Carl, all came out in support of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Last year the Supreme Court undermined the democratic foundation of our constitutional government with a catastrophic decision,” Morelle said. “The unrestrained absolute presidential immunity doctrine the court imagined in Trump v. United States invites a federal executive unbound by the constraints of the rule of law.”
U.S. Representative Julie Johnson, D-Texas; End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller; and Executive Vice President of People for the American Way Marge Baker joined Morelle and Sewell for the proposed amendment’s announcement.
New amendments to the U.S. Constitution must receive a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and then be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures.
