Senate Democrats are planning to force a vote to try to nix President Trump’s emergency declaration transferring military construction money to fund the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), making the announcement from the Senate floor, blasted Trump for making a “brazen power grab” and trying to leapfrog Congress.
{mosads}”The president’s national emergency declaration was and is an outrageous power grab by a president who refuses to respect the constitutional separation of powers. … Does our country truly have checks and balances, particularly when we have such an overreaching president?” Schumer asked from the Senate floor.
Schumer added that if Congress didn’t nix Trump’s emergency declaration it would set a “dangerous precedent” that could allow a president to use their national emergency powers when Congress refuses to fund a priority.
“This is so wrong. The president has clearly attempted to usurp the power of the purse given exclusively to Congress by the Constitution. … The recourse for such a brazen power grab should be an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the Congress to terminate the emergency declaration and reassert our constitutional authority,” Schumer said.
“We have never had such a presidential overreach on an emergency basis,” Schumer said.
Schumer said the vote would take place “within the next month.” Congress is set to leave town at the end of the month for a two-week break.
It would be the second time the vote has come up in the Senate. The chamber
previously voted to terminate the emergency declaration in March, with 12 Republican senators joining Democrats to block Trump from being able to raid military construction funds. But Trump vetoed the resolution, and the House failed to override Trump’s veto.
The decision to force a second vote comes after the Trump administration
began notifying congressional leadership and lawmakers who would have projects affected by the declaration that they were going to move forward with their plan to redirect $3.6 billion in emergency declaration funding.
“How do we say to the men and women who risk their lives for us … that we’re taking their money away — that the president’s taking their money away and we shrug our shoulders?” Schumer said on Tuesday.
The procedure being pursued by Senate Democrats is privileged, meaning Republicans won’t be able to block the vote from happening, and they need only a simple majority for the resolution to pass the Senate.
Under the National Emergencies Act, Democrats can force additional votes on resolutions of disapproval blocking Trump every sixth months —prolonging the political headache for Republicans.
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