Trump's Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Trump’s Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say

Law professors have long debated what the term means. But now many have concluded that the nation faces a reckoning as President Trump tests the boundaries of executive power.


It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of President Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By Adam Liptak
Reporting from Washington

Published Feb. 10, 2025
Updated Feb. 11, 2025, 7:26 a.m. ET
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

There is no universally accepted definition of a constitutional crisis, but legal scholars agree about some of its characteristics. It is generally the product of presidential defiance of laws and judicial rulings. It is not binary: It is a slope, not a switch. It can be cumulative, and once one starts, it can get much worse.

It can also be obvious, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. ... “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” he said on Friday. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”

He ticked off examples of what he called President Trump’s lawless conduct: revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal spending, shutting down an agency, removing leaders of other agencies, firing government employees subject to civil service protections and threatening to deport people based on their political views. ... That is a partial list, Professor Chemerinsky said, and it grows by the day. “Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis,” he said.

The distinctive feature of the current situation, several legal scholars said, is its chaotic flood of activity that collectively amounts to a radically new conception of presidential power. But the volume and speed of those actions may overwhelm and thus thwart sober and measured judicial consideration. ... It will take some time, though perhaps only weeks, for a challenge to one of Mr. Trump’s actions to reach the Supreme Court. On Monday, a federal judge said the White House had defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump administration is disobeying a judicial mandate.

{snip}

Adam Liptak covers the Supreme Court and writes Sidebar, a column on legal developments. A graduate of Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002. More about Adam Liptak

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Causes Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[dutch777]

1. So go the mat and settle it. Not like it should be a surprise to anyone. Dems take note of ALL the legislation that...

...needs to be changed and beefed up so we are not relying just on "norms" to control governmental and Presidential behavior. Can't fix it when we are out of power, but we will get a chance and should be ready with our own Project 2029.

[Bluetus]

2. No shit. We've been in a Constitutional crisis since 2000 at least

Last edited Tue Feb 11, 2025, 01:34 PM - Edit history (1)

The SCOTUS overturning the 2000 election

The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan with no declaration of war by the Congress

The perversion of the Heller decision, bastardizing the meaning of the 2nd Amendment

Citizen's United, that allows Musk and anybody else to simply buy whatever part of government they are interested in

and then 100 things Trump has done that are direct attacks on the Constitution.

These scholarly twits drive me nuts with their "Golly, if he keeps this up, one day we might find ourselves in a Constitutional crisis" bullshit. We're there. We've been there for 25 years.

We have no Constitution now.