GOP lawmakers push Republicans

Former GOP lawmakers push Republicans to block Trump's emergency declaration

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

Nearly two dozen former Republican members of Congress have penned an open letter to GOP lawmakers, urging them to reject President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the letter, the former members wrote that the president’s move undermines the constitutional authority given to Congress to make federal appropriations, and argue that the emergency declaration would set a precedent for future presidents that could one day come back to bite them.

“There is no way around this difficulty: what powers are ceded to a president whose policies you support may also be used by presidents whose policies you abhor,” the former lawmakers wrote.

They called on Republicans in Congress to “exercise restraint to protect the constitutional model ... and to keep it from being sacrificed on the altar of expediency” and ask them to “pass a joint resolution terminating the emergency declared by the President.”

Trump declared a state of emergency at the southern border earlier this month, allowing him to siphon money from the departments of Defense and Justice to build his long-promised border wall. The move headed off the possibility of a second government shutdown over Congress' unwillingness to meet the president's demand for billions of dollars in wall funding.

Although Trump has insisted that the wall, his signature 2016 campaign promise, is an urgent priority, the president has at times seemed to undermine the urgency of the situation at the border, saying just minutes after announcing the emergency declaration that “I didn’t need to do this.”

The House is set to vote on a joint resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration on Tuesday, a measure that is expected to pass. The resolution would then have to be taken up by the Senate, where it would need just a simple majority for approval, setting up the prospect of Trump vetoing the measure.

A two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate is required to override a presidential veto, an outcome that is much less certain.

The emergency declaration has given pause to some of the president’s allies in Congress, who in addition to pointing out that lawmakers alone have the power of the purse, argue that it would give precedent to a Democratic president who could declare a state of emergency over policies they oppose, like fighting climate change or gun control.