Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) vowed Tuesday to use the appropriations process to fight against President Trump’s national emergency declaration to obtain funds for a border wall.
Her announcement comes after the House failed Tuesday to override Trump’s veto of a resolution that initially passed the lower chamber in a 245-182 vote and would have blocked his declaration to reallocate billions of dollars in Pentagon funds for a border wall.
{mosads}“The President’s lawless emergency declaration clearly violates the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, and Congress will work through the appropriations and defense authorization processes to terminate this dangerous action and restore our constitutional system of balance of powers,” Pelosi said in a joint statement with Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas).
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, vowed after the declaration was announced to “study the details of President Trump’s announcement and determine how best to challenge it, both legislatively and legally.”
Trump first declared the national emergency in February after a congressional spending bill failed to meet his demands for $5.7 billion in border wall funds. His declaration allocated roughly $8 billion for miles of new barriers along the southern border.
Democrats and a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate decried the move as a threat to military readiness and an infringement on Congress’s constitutional duty to appropriate federal funds.
“Never before has a president asked for funding, Congress has not provided it, and the president then has used the National Emergencies Act of 1976 to spend the money anyway,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is not seeking reelection and voted for the Senate resolution blocking the declaration. “Our nation’s founders gave to Congress the power to approve all spending so that the president would not have too much power.”
Attorney General William Barr has defended Trump’s declaration as “clearly authorized under the law and consistent with past precedent.”
Pelosi noted that the White House is facing multiple lawsuits related to the emergency declaration that are still sifting through the court system. She also hinted she will look at an aspect of the National Emergencies Act that would allow the House to hold a disapproval vote on the declaration every six months.
The 1976 law states that “not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a concurrent resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated.”
“In six months, the Congress will have another opportunity to put a stop to this President’s wrongdoing. We will continue to review all options to protect our Constitution and our Democracy from the President’s assault,” Pelosi and Castro said.