# Many of Trump's proposed policies are unconstitutional **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [July 14, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923 "2016-07-14T20:31:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/21 "2016-07-15T12:01:39Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > How is that unconstitutional? IIRC, the only time the death penalty is used in New Hampshire is for murder of a police officer. The president doesn’t have authority to set penalties for murder in the various states. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/22 "2016-07-15T13:42:38Z")
Of course, if the perp doesn’t survive the arrest procedure, the point is moot. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/23 "2016-07-15T13:47:34Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > 1. Wall on Mexican Border. Astoundingly stupid, but probably not unconstitutional. Probably true, though some of the mechanisms proposed to pay for the fall would be unconstitutional (targeted prohibitions on remittances of Mexicans in the US, for example) > [@Iggy](#): > > The non-citizen abroad cannot exert constitutional rights so would lack standing. In _[Kerry v. Din](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_v._Din)_ the Supreme Court ruled that a naturalized citizen spouse could not challenge denial of a visa to her spouse. It is not clear who might have standing to challenge such a sweeping denial of visas to Muslims. > > So it seems mass denial of immigration to Muslims might be abhorrent, but not apparently unconstitutional. I don’t think it makes sense to say that if no one has standing then the Constitution has not been violated. And I’m also not persuaded that _Kerry v. Din_ means no one could have standing. Kennedy discusses _Kleindienst v. Mandel_, 408 U.S. 753 (1972), at length in that opinion, and _Kleindienst_ would support a challenge to Trump’s policy. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/24 "2016-07-15T13:54:10Z")
Tired of that “eyes glazed over” feeling? Try **'luci** ’s Anti-glaze Drops, with the special “Case Law” formula! For that moment when you realize that you _can’t_ actually be bored to tears! ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/25 "2016-07-15T14:01:18Z")
I thought putting this in a separate thread focused on discussing, you know, laws, would have been a sufficient trigger warning for you, **'luci**. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/26 "2016-07-15T14:04:17Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The only conceivable saving grace in all of this is that he’s just running his fat mouth, and doesn’t have the slightest intention of actually following through with anything he’s said. So far, just about every position he’s taken on any issue at all flatly contradicts another position he’s taken on the same issue! This is true to an extent of all politicians and it’s a big mistake to pay too much attention to the details of the various proposals they make when running for office. Of course, Trump is in a league of his own. In some ways Trump is a non-politician running for office, but in terms of campaign BS, he is the ultimate politician, like an ordinary politician but magnified exponentially. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2016, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/27 "2016-07-15T14:06:44Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I thought putting this in a separate thread focused on discussing, you know, laws, would have been a sufficient trigger warning for you, **'luci**. Smooth thy ruffled feathers, legal eagle. I simply assume you’ve made a cogent and incisive point, and move along. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/28 "2016-07-18T07:32:14Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Yes however we do know that Trump has vowed to protect Article XII of the constitution! I’m curious if you gave Obama a pass for saying he visited 57 states? I’m sure the anti-Muslim laws would be written regarding country of origin and not religion. Those I believe are constitutional. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/29 "2016-07-18T07:37:23Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’m sure the anti-Muslim laws would be written regarding country of origin and not religion. Those I believe are constitutional. Possibly that would be constitutional. But the ACLU is commenting on the constitutionality of what Trump said, not about the very different thing that you’re “sure” he would do. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/30 "2016-07-18T07:39:23Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Possibly that would be constitutional. But the ACLU is commenting on the constitutionality of what Trump said, not about the very different thing that you’re “sure” he would do. Well if he says he’s going to write ANY laws as President I’m pretty sure that violates Article I Section 1. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/31 "2016-07-18T08:03:04Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Well if he says he’s going to write ANY laws as President I’m pretty sure that violates Article I Section 1. He hasn’t said that, though, has he? What he has said is that he favours a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” Nothing about “people whose country of origin is a Muslim-majority country”; just “Muslims”. And that’s what the ACLU is commenting on. Obviously, an entry ban based on country of origin, other objections aside, would fall far short of “a total and complete ban on Muslims”, so your sureness about what he would attempt, if elected, is clearly not based on what he himself has said. I take it for granted, of course, that Trump may abandon any or all of his campaign positions and nobody will be in the least surprised by that, but when somebody claims to be “sure” what he will do instead, my scepticism is aroused. If Trump is anything, he’s unpredictable. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/32 "2016-07-18T08:11:59Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’m curious if you gave Obama a pass for saying he visited 57 states? The difference is that no-one really believes that Obama doesn’t know the number of states in the US. However it’s entirely plausible that Trump doesn’t know the difference between constitutional articles and amendments, how many there are of each, and what they’re about, or why they’re important. As this very thread is about, 90%+ of his proposed policies are unconstitutional in some way or other. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/33 "2016-07-18T11:30:09Z")
Anything is Constitutional if you get five Supreme Court Justices to say it is. If Trump gets the right justices on there, those policies will be. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/34 "2016-07-18T14:31:58Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Anything is Constitutional if you get five Supreme Court Justices to say it is. If Trump gets the right justices on there, those policies will be. Any President’s ability to change the court is going to take time and involve its own obstacles (Senate filibuster in particular) but in general I agree: constitutional is what courts say is constitutional. But mainly it seems to me that list and its constitutionality are in gray area even assuming only one Trump nominee to the USSC (replacing the Garland nomination) and it’s somebody mainstream. It also depends which particular iteration of Trump’s statements you are using. For example on ‘Muslim ban’ as of a news item I saw today or yesterday he’s restated that as ‘extreme vetting’, not a religious test. And as others have mentioned it’s anyway only the ACLU’s opinion that the 1st amendment would prohibit a religious test on immigration applied to non-US nationals outside the US. It’s not a clear fact. The other ones are even more obscure. The basic fact the OP is missing is that a populist like Trump is appealing to a gut feeling, not a set of policy prescriptions. Some people who support him live in a fantasy world imagining he’d just be able to do whatever he says. But AFAIK a lot of people realize he’s pretty full of it, but think the bipartisan political status quo and ‘establishment’ of which HRC is a prototypical representative, you can say positive things about her but you can’t deny that, is more full of it. They want a bull in the china shop. They also think ‘you can’t say that’ wrt to a lot of the things Trump says likely to be excoriated on a forum like this has gone too far and become destructive. Is that feeling and those voters enough to elect Trump? I have no special expertise to say the betting or poll analysis odds (which say Trump=underdog) are wrong. But if he does win it’s not really going to be because most of the people voting for him really think he can do whatever he wants or expect him to try. Whether he’d derail his presidency trying to is psychoanalysis at a distance which is very hard to do, although it’s fair to refuse to vote for him if you think he _might_ be completely serious about everything he says. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/35 "2016-07-18T15:20:12Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’m curious if you gave Obama a pass for saying he visited 57 states? … You mean there are MORE ketchup flavors than there are states? How did that happen? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2016, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/36 "2016-07-18T16:57:19Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Possibly that would be constitutional. But the ACLU is commenting on the constitutionality of what Trump said, not about the very different thing that you’re “sure” he would do. “The Constah-tooshun is for loosahs!” How is it, again, that the GOP got themselves into such disarray that they enabled a Cheetos-colored gibbon to take over their nomination for presidential candidate? Oh, right…they’ve been [setting the stage for exactly this kind of wide-ranging yet ill-defined abandonment of Constitutional legislation for over twenty years](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/jfnpr/jfreview.htm) but like a pimply-faced teen boy on a second date, can’t figure out how to undo the latch on the bra, whereas Trump is a full-on serial date rapist when it comes to Constitutionality of proposed laws and executive actions and is already planning how he is going to drive out on an abandoned country road and give the “Put out or get out!” challenge to America. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/37 "2016-07-21T04:40:33Z")
I’m not sure if this is unconstitutional or not… at least what I heard of it. That said… what I heard (and can’t find the link to it at the the moment, so maybe I heard it wrong ) was that Trump said today that wanted Congress to pass a law that would let him fire any (every?) Federal Employee hired under the last two Obama administrations without cause. Maybe its reaching… but that _almost_ seemed like he wanted the power to comb through the entire Federal Government and fire any Federal Employee whose private politics he doesn’t like. This to me sounded frightening… like McCarthyism-On-Steroids… where instead of Communists, he wants investigators trying to root out all people who privately hold views that more closely align to The Democratic Party than his party. What is even scarier is that… I’m not sure that if he tried it… that it would be unconstitutional… ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/38 "2016-07-21T05:11:32Z")
Cleaning house from the last administration is nothing unusual. He’s just being vocal about it. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/39 "2016-07-21T05:18:18Z")
> [@Superdude](#): > > Cleaning house from the last administration is nothing unusual. He’s just being vocal about it. It also sounds like he wants to go deeper. Usually, it’s just recent high level officials. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923/40 "2016-07-21T11:42:04Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > It also sounds like he wants to go deeper. Usually, it’s just recent high level officials. ^ This. Also, just heard this morning being discussed on CNN… he wants to pick and choose if or when he’ll defend other members of NATO??? A panelist/expert on CNN just described this as “ripping up the NATO treaty” and turning our back on allies whom we’ve stood with (and who have stood with us) for more than 65 years? I know that in the US the Senate has to ratify International Treaties. Is it constitutional for presidents to break them on a whim just because that day they woke up with a hemorrhoid? I could go off on a tangent of why I feel Wall Street board-room back-stabbing Slime are NEVER fit for leadership positions fostering international allies and International good will while maintaining the integrity and reputation of America, but I just don’t think its the purpose of this thread (and I’m looking forward to people with better words than mine to point this out in other threads elsewhere). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-of-trumps-proposed-policies-are-unconstitutional/759923.md?page=3)