Thread by @dsamuelsohn

NEW: Legal scholars say Democrats must make big changes to limit presidential authority or there's every reason to believe a future White House occupant will try to again push the limits of executive power. The consequences, some say, could be dire. ($) businessinsider.com/trump-for-pres…

Democrats are pushing a series of measures that directly respond to many of their biggest Trump criticisms: giving Congress more power when it comes to pardons, enforcement of the emoluments clauses, and the policing of subpoenas.

A bill from Rep. Adam Schiff would also make it harder to fire government watchdogs, toughen federal enforcement for Hatch Act violations, and attempt to limit White House political interference at the Justice Department.

But nine months into the Biden administration, and with Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress, none of the legislation introduced to prevent a Trump 2.0 has been enacted, and it doesn't appear to have much of a chance of becoming law anytime soon.

Even if the reforms were to clear the Democratic-led House, they'd need to get Republican support in the Senate. There, Democrats hold 50 seats and the narrowest of majorities — and face a 60-vote threshold for overcoming a Republican filibuster to pass most legislation.

"Unless Congress soon reasserts some of its power to check the executive branch, the odds that our democracy will last more than another decade or so seem, to me, depressingly low," said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional-law professor at Harvard.

The legislation from Schiff and other House Democrats, Tribe said, would "restore the system of checks and balances that has kept our republic afloat through the most turbulent times."

But Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri, said Trump or another president would likely attempt to expand White House authority. If Trump were to win reelection, he said, "we are on a short road to the loss of American democracy."

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the former president's top defenders on Capitol Hill, told @thisisinsider in a recent interview that part of the reason Democrats hadn't pursued limiting executive power more aggressively was that now it's "their guy in office."

For the moment, the Biden administration and congressional leadership appear more focused on domestic-policy spending, and even supporters of the anti-Trump measures acknowledge that they'd be tough to pass through a Senate with a one-vote Democratic majority.

"I don't know," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, told @rbravender last week when she asked how much of a priority the issues were for House Democrats.

A White House spokesman, Chris Meagher, said the Biden admin supports lawmakers' efforts to curb Trump's use of executive power. "The prior Administration's routine abuse of power and violation of longstanding norms posed a deep threat to our democracy," he said via email.

WH spox Chris Meagher added: "We strongly support efforts to restore guardrails and breathe life back into those longstanding norms. We're working with Congress to do that, and we're also building that commitment into every single thing this Administration does every day."

Schiff said he worked closely w/ Biden's admin before reintroducing his bill. "While there remain issues to be resolved, I know that the White House agrees that protecting our democracy is a moral and constitutional imperative, and an urgent one," Schiff said.

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