Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

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_Brackite
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Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Brackite »

From the Associated Press:

Senate rejects Trump border emergency as Republicans defect

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-run Senate firmly rejected President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southwest border on Thursday, setting up a veto fight and dealing him a conspicuous rebuke as he tested how boldly he could ignore Congress in pursuit of his highest-profile goal.

The Senate voted 59-41 to cancel Trump’s February proclamation of a border emergency, which he invoked to spend $3.6 billion more for border barriers than Congress had approved. Twelve Republicans joined Democrats in defying Trump in a showdown many GOP senators had hoped to avoid because he commands die-hard loyalty from millions of conservative voters who could punish defecting lawmakers in next year’s elections.

In a measure of how remarkable the confrontation was, Thursday was the first time Congress has voted to block a presidential emergency since the National Emergency Act became law in 1976.

Even before Thursday’s vote, there were warnings that GOP senators resisting Trump could face political consequences. A White House official said Trump won’t forget when senators who oppose him want him to attend fundraisers or provide other help. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on internal deliberations.

At the White House, Trump did not answer when reporters asked if there would be consequences for Republicans who voted against him.

Underscoring the political pressures in play, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who last month became one of the first Republicans to say he’d oppose Trump’s border emergency, said Thursday he’d vote to support it. Tillis, who faces a potentially difficult re-election race next year, cited talks with the White House that suggest Trump could be open to restricting presidential emergency powers in the future.



I am very disappointed in Senator Tillis for chickening out on this. Here are the 12 GOP Senators who voted to reject Trump's National emergency declaration:

Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee
Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine
Sen. Mike Lee, Utah
Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky
Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio
Sen. Mitt Romney, Utah
Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida
Sen. Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania
Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-emer ... e-updates/

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/ ... 9#position
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter
_Brackite
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Brackite »

From CNBC:

Trump rejects bill that would block his border emergency in his first veto

President Donald Trump rejected a bill Friday that would end the national emergency he declared at the southern U.S. border.

The president's veto, signed in front of reporters in the Oval Office, is his first since he entered the White House. While the Democratic-held House will likely try to override his opposition, neither chamber of Congress appears to have enough support to reach the two-thirds majority needed.

The GOP-controlled Senate dealt a blow to Trump on Thursday, when 12 Republicans joined with Democrats in voting to terminate his emergency declaration. He publicly pushed Senate Republicans to vote against the House-passed resolution even as he shot down one plan that could have limited the number of GOP senators voting to block his flex of executive power.

"Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution, and I have the duty to veto it," he said before he rejected the measure. He called the resolution passed by Congress "reckless."

Though Trump has pushed back congressional efforts to check his declaration for now, his administration still has to fight court challenges. More than a dozen states and several outside groups have filed lawsuits challenging his executive action.

Those lawsuits in part cited comments Trump made when he declared the emergency last month. The president said he "didn't need to" take that step but wanted to expedite the construction of barriers.

Democrats plan to vote to override Trump's veto on March 26, NBC News reported, citing two sources. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who introduced the measure to block the declaration in the House, said Thursday that he will try to gather support for another vote even though it will be "very tough" to reach a two-thirds majority.
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter
_canpakes
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _canpakes »

Vetoed! Brown people are so scary!
_Dr Exiled
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Dr Exiled »

The wall is a silly, unworkable proposal anyway.
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_Kevin Graham
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Kevin Graham »

Shouldn't this be an impeachable offense?

He's effectively undermining the Constitution which is what he swore to uphold and defend. And it ain't the first time either. This is just the first time we have Congress united on the fact that this is what he's doing.
_Res Ipsa
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Kevin Graham wrote:Shouldn't this be an impeachable offense?

He's effectively undermining the Constitution which is what he swore to uphold and defend. And it ain't the first time either. This is just the first time we have Congress united on the fact that this is what he's doing.


The veto?
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

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_EAllusion
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _EAllusion »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Kevin Graham wrote:Shouldn't this be an impeachable offense?

He's effectively undermining the Constitution which is what he swore to uphold and defend. And it ain't the first time either. This is just the first time we have Congress united on the fact that this is what he's doing.


The veto?


I think he means the naked abuse of the emergency powers clause. The thing about that is if you had the votes to impeach, you'd have the votes to override presidential action first.
_Brackite
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Brackite »

There have been some criticism from right-wing media towards the 12 GOP Senators that voted against Trump's National emergency declaration. But Trump’s National emergency declaration is clearly unconstitutional. From thehill.com:

National emergency funding of border wall is unconstitutional

The effort by President Trump to unilaterally increase funding for the border wall is unconstitutional for a simple but little noticed reason. The statute from which he claims to derive authority, known as the National Emergencies Act, is itself unconstitutional. The legal debate has focused so far on presidential emergency powers. However, the more immediate issue is presidential budgetary powers, which are sharply limited by the Constitution. The national emergency declaration by Trump to spend more than Congress authorized for border security violates those limits.

Presidential emergency powers have been received skeptically ever since the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the seizure of steel mills by President Truman during the Korean War. In that case of Youngstown in 1952, Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote an opinion that presidential emergency powers are tied to legislative action. When Congress makes a legislative choice, the president has little power to override it. When it gives the president emergency powers, there is also little he cannot do.

Trump argues that in the National Emergencies Act, Congress has given him precisely what it denied Truman, which is the power to make emergency judgment calls. Further, he argues that Congress left it to the president to decide what constitutes an emergency. His opponents argue that Congress had a narrower idea of emergency in mind. On this very issue of statutory interpretation, the president might win. That, however, is not the end of the matter. In fact, it is not even the proper beginning.


To make constitutional sense of the emergency wall funding called for by Trump, the key case is not Youngstown, but Bill Clinton versus New York, which involved a challenge to the Line Item Veto Act. This law was passed in the 1990s in an effort to curb the federal deficit by giving the president a “line item veto” over specifically earmarked funds. President Clinton eventually used the law to veto a few provisions of a 1997 budgetary law, most importantly, a large transfer of funds to state governments intended to defray the costs of Medicaid administration. New York brought suit.

The Supreme Court declared the Line Item Veto Act unconstitutional in 1998 because it gave the president the “unilateral power to change the text of duly enacted statutes.” When a bill passes through both chambers of Congress, the Supreme Court held, the president has just two options. He can sign it into law or he can veto it. What the president may not do is approve certain parts of a bill while rejecting others. He may not tinker or proceed piecemeal even if Congress prefers that option. On this point, the Clinton opinion could hardly be clearer. It does not matter whether Congress had “anticipated that the president might cancel” some of the enacted items. Short of amending the Constitution, Congress is disabled from “altering the procedures” already set out in the legislative process.

In other words, the authority to determine the content of bills lies with Congress, and Congress alone. Even if Congress does want to give the president the power to override bills part by part, the Constitution forbids it. Thus, Congress was constitutionally disabled from giving the president a line item veto. If the president wants to change a particular item in a statute, he must do it through new legislation. There are no shortcuts.



And EAllusion's State recently joined in the lawsuit against Trump's national emergency declaration.

Wisconsin joins other states suing Donald Trump over border national emergency
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter
_moksha
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _moksha »

Makes me wonder why Senator Mike Lee would vote against the pseudo-emergency. Perhaps it was in support of Ted Cruise or Mitt Romney.
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_Brackite
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Re: Senate rejects Trump's border emergency

Post by _Brackite »

Here is the latest news concerning this.

House Dems sue Trump over national emergency declaration

The Democratic-controlled House on Friday filed a lawsuit against President Trump alleging his declaration of a national emergency to build a border wall is unconstitutional, a move that shifts the political battle to the courts.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims the president violated Congress's constitutional authority over appropriations by diverting federal funds from other sources to construct a wall after Congress provided only $1.375 billion for border security.

"The House is unaware of any other instance in American history where a President has declared a national emergency to obtain funding after failing to win Congressional approval for an appropriation," the lawsuit reads.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.




House asks judge to halt Trump border wall funding

The House of Representatives has asked a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall using Defense Department funds.

On Tuesday, House lawyers requested that U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden issue a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s plan to spend about $6 billion from military construction and counter-drug accounts to build additional barriers along the U.S-Mexico border.

“Defendants are moving quickly to construct the border wall, and they have awarded contracts against funds that Congress did not appropriate for that purpose. And more contracts are coming soon,” House General Counsel Doug Letter and other lawyers wrote. “Once made, these unconstitutional expenditures cannot be undone, and the grave institutional injury inflicted on the House cannot be remedied.”


The House’s 56-page motion accuses Trump of trying to make an end-run around the Constitution by ignoring Congress’s power of the purse. House lawyers also seek to use Trump’s own words against him, mentioning six times that on the day he announced the emergency, Trump also said, “I didn’t need to do this.” They also cite his campaign vow that Mexico would pay for the wall.

More than half of the money the House is seeking to block is linked to an emergency declaration Trump issued in February, after he agreed to sign a budget bill following a 35-day government shutdown over wall funding. The bill contained only $1.375 billion for border fencing, far less than Trump sought.
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter
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