House votes down Trump emergency
Bucks Republican joins Dems from Pa. while Toomey still on the fence
WASHINGTON – Democrats in the U.S. House — and a handful of Republicans — took aim Tuesday at President Donald Trump’s effort to redirect federal money to his border wall proposal, voting to undo the emergency declaration that the president announced to justify moving those dollars.
That resolution passed the House on a vote of 245-182, with Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick among supporters. Now the Senate will decide if the resolution heads to the White House for an expected veto.
As of Tuesday evening, three Senate Republicans had said they will support the legislation, meaning that only one more is needed to vote with all the Democrats to send the measure to Trump’s desk.
Among the undecided GOP
senators is Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, who told reporters after a caucus luncheon that he is “still considering” how he’ll vote on the resolution.
Toomey previously had expressed concerns about the precedent set by the national emergency declaration, and said he would be reviewing the implications of what Trump sought to do.
“I continue to believe that the president’s $5.7 billion border wall funding request was reasonable,” Toomey said in a statement released by his office Tuesday evening.
“That said, I had hoped that this dispute would have been resolved through the legislative process. I am concerned about the president’s emergency declaration, and am still considering how I will vote on a resolution of disapproval.”
Trump used a 1976 law to declare a national emergency and ordered the shift of $3.6 billion from military construction projects to wall building.
Citing other powers, he also intends to shift another $3.1 billion from Defense Department anti-drug efforts and a fund that collects seized assets.
In an interview Tuesday outside the House chamber, Fitzpatrick said the issue for him is whether any president, regardless of party, can override the spending authority that Congress has exerted.
“This is bigger than any one issue or any one president,” the Bucks County Republican said. “This goes to the Constitution. It goes to what precedent is set. Once spending is allocated by Congress, can the president unilaterally reprogram those funds?”
Fitzpatrick said he hopes to see Congress take action beyond Tuesday’s resolution on the issue of executive authority, saying that both parties in Congress have been frustrated by administrations that have encroached on what lawmakers say is their constitutionally granted authority.
House Democrats also argued, using stronger language, that the president lacks the authority to move the billions of dollars he’s seeking to build more barriers along the border.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump’s action “steals billions of dollars” from those military construction projects — including possibly family housing and child care centers — to build the wall on the border with Mexico. The Defense Department has not identified which projects may face the ax.
All nine of Pennsylvania’s House Democrats were cosponsors on the resolution. Lehigh Valley Congresswoman Susan Wild has said she doesn’t believe the situation along the nation’s southern border meets the criteria for declaring the type of emergency that would allow the president to reallocate federal funds.
“The president should instead work with us — Republicans and Democrats — on long-term, effective immigration reform,” Wild said in a statement after the vote.
GOP lawmakers, who overwhelmingly opposed the resolution, defended Trump’s authority to declare an emergency and his claims of a security crisis along the boundary with Mexico, which he has said is ravaged by drug smugglers, human traffickers and immigrants trying to sneak into the U.S. illegally.
“Congressional Democrats have had their heads in the sand and refused to heed the pleas of our border security professionals to give them the resources they need. As a result, the president was forced to act,” said Republican Rep. Dan Meuser, whose 9th District includes Schuylkill and Carbon counties.
“He used his constitutional authority to invoke a national emergency to address the crisis. The thought that Congress should stand in the way of that authority is wrong.”
The Senate now has 18 days to hold a vote on the legislation.
On Monday, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he would vote to block the order, joining Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski as Republicans supporting the resolution.
Congress must defend its power of the purse and warned that a future Democratic president might abuse the power to advance “radical policies,” Tillis said.
Another Republican, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, called Trump’s order “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the United States Constitution, and I’ll decide how to vote when I’m presented with something to vote on.”
The White House said Tuesday that Trump will veto the resolution if it passes the Senate, reiterating the administration’s view that the situation at the border represents “a humanitarian and security crisis that threatens core national security interests.”
Overriding his veto would take a two-thirds vote in each chamber, which is unlikely to occur based on levels of support in the House and Senate.
Trump’s edict is also being challenged in the federal courts, where a host of Democratic-led states such as California are among those that have sued to overturn the order. The House may also join in.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.