McCormick launches push for constitutional “Livable Future Amendment”

In a political climate increasingly shaped by manufactured crises, New Jersey activist Lisa McCormick is mounting what she calls a challenge to the nation’s “failure of moral and political will.”

The anti-establishment progressive Democrat is unveiling a new proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing a livable environment for all children and future generations.

McCormick, widely known for her primary challenge against former Senator Bob Menendez, is proposing the Livable Future Amendment as the Trump administration accelerates fossil fuel development and rejects climate science.

McCormick accuses the Republican administration of fabricating border and trade emergencies while ignoring an escalating climate disaster.

“Trump is creating theater while the world is on fire,” McCormick said. “‘Drill, baby, drill’ is virtually the same as saying ‘Kill babies,’ because the first person who will die as a result of planetary failure has already been born.” She frames the climate crisis not as a political debate, but as a direct threat to the rights of the unborn.

McCormick’s proposal would affirm that all Americans have a constitutional right to a clean, safe, and sustainable environment—including stable climates, clean air, pure water, and healthy ecosystems.

The amendment is written to be self-executing, placing the burden on the government to demonstrate that any action harming the environment serves a compelling public interest. The framework draws on lessons from major climate-rights cases and aims to close long-standing legal gaps.

For New Jersey residents, the proposal carries particular weight. The state has been a national leader in environmental justice, recently adopting a law empowering regulators to deny permits for polluting facilities in overburdened communities.

Yet New Jersey’s own attempt at a Green Amendment, first introduced in 2014, has repeatedly stalled in the Legislature even as other states have advanced similar protections.

McCormick’s federal amendment seeks to bypass that deadlock and extend environmental rights nationwide.

The amendment is grounded in the public trust doctrine, which holds that government acts as a trustee of vital natural resources on behalf of both current and future generations. Enshrining this principle in the Constitution would redefine the government’s responsibilities, elevating environmental protection from a regulatory matter to a civil right on par with free speech.

McCormick criticizes both major parties for their environmental records, accusing the Trump administration of overt hostility to climate science and the Biden administration of failing to declare a climate emergency while overseeing record fossil fuel production.

Ratifying a constitutional amendment remains a formidable undertaking, requiring two-thirds approval in Congress and adoption by three-fourths of the states. Still, grassroots momentum appears to be building. Municipalities such as Bordentown have passed resolutions of support, and advocates hope that public demand for stronger environmental protections will grow as climate impacts intensify.

Confronted with what she calls a “nightmare scenario” of political inaction, McCormick argues that the right to a livable planet transcends partisan divides. “This is not a policy preference,” she says. “It is the most fundamental right of all.”