The Schumer Amendment
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

A bill to amend the Constitution of the United States to prevent the President from firing the Special Counsel. Offered herewith by The New York Sun as a public service, the measure may be cited as “The Chuck Schumer Separated Powers Abatement Act of 2018.”
Whereas it was the senior senator of New York who first called for the Republican leaders to bring to the floor a bipartisan bill to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired during his investigation of President Trump;
Whereas the Senate of the United States previously failed to convict President Andrew Johnson, who had been impeached for violating an earlier attempt by the Congress to block the President from firing his officers;
Whereas that attempt by this sovereign Congress to circumscribe the president’s firing power — the Tenure of Office Act of 1867 — was eventually ruled unconstitutional by the pecksniffs on the Supreme Court of the United States;
Whereas the same sentence of the Constitution that commands the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” also requires that he shall “commission all the Officers of the United States”;
Whereas the Constitution fails to qualify that by saying “most” or “some of the” or “many of the” officers of the United States but instead says, in plain language, “all [as in all] of the Officers of the United States”;
Whereas the power to “commission” inherently comprises the power to decommission — as in, you’re fired — lest the president be unable to carry out his duty to execute the laws faithfully;
Whereas the principle of separated powers goes back to before the founding of our Republic and any tinkering therewith via constitutional amendment must and needs be reciprocal on the several branches;
Whereas the above makes clear that the power of the president to fire this, or any, special counsel cannot be curbed by mere statute but only by an amendment of the national parchment;
Now therefore, pursuant to powers granted Congress in Article 5 of the United States Constitution, it is proposed that said Constitution be amended by the addition of the language expressed in CAPITAL LETTERS below:
Article II, pertaining to the executive branch, shall state that the President “shall take Care that MANY OF THE the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission AND, SAVE FOR THE SPECIAL COUNSEL, DECOMMISSION all the Officers of the United States”;
Article I, pertaining to the Congress, shall provide that “Each House may, AT THE SOLE DISCRETION OF THE PRESIDENT, determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.”
Article 1, Section Six shall be reworded to provide that: The Senators and Representatives shall “in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be, UNLESS THE PRESIDENT SIGNALS OTHERWISE, 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, EXCEPT AS MAY BE DIRECTED BY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.”
Article III, pertaining to the judiciary, shall be reworded to provide that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during WHAT THE PRESIDENT DEEMS, IN HIS SOLE DISCRETION, TO BE good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not, EXCEPT ON INSTRUCTIONS OF THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND THE BUDGET, be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”
The Amendments contained in this Act shall become part of the Constitution when two-thirds of each of the two houses of the Congress shall vote that they deem it necessary and it is subsequently ratified by three-quarters of the several states.