House Democrats are gearing up to pass a joint resolution disapproving US President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration to build his US-Mexico border wall, a move that will force Senate Republicans to vote on a contentious issue that divides their party.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said in an interview with The Washington Post Thursday evening that the House would take up the resolution in the coming days. The document is expected to easily clear the Democratic-led House. And since the measure would be privileged, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, would be forced to put the resolution to a vote.
“This is a gross abuse of presidential power,” Nadler said of the news that Trump would declare a national emergency to try to move money around to fulfill his campaign promise. “This is an attempt to overturn the basic constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. Congress has the power of the purse. It cannot be tolerated.”
Should the Senate fail to adopt the resolution, or should Trump veto the text, Nadler said “we’ll probably go to court after that.” House Democrats, anticipating the president’s move, have discussed a potential legal challenge for what they see as executive overreach.
Nadler’s plans come as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blasted Trump’s move to declare a national emergency to build the border wall, accusing the president of making an “end-run around Congress” and warning that a future Democratic president could do the same thing on gun control.
Pelosi told reporters that Republicans should “have some dismay about the door that they’re opening” should they endorse Trump’s expected emergency declaration to fund his U.S.-Mexico barrier. She noted that a Democratic president could call the gun control epidemic claiming thousands of lives every year an emergency – a pointed threat on an issue Republicans hold dear: gun rights.
“You want to talk about an national emergency? Let’s talk about today, the one-year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America,” Pelosi said, referring to the Parkland, Florida, shooting that left more than a dozen high school students dead. “That’s a national emergency . . .. A Democratic president could do that.”
She added: “So the precedent that the president is setting here should be met with unease and dismay by the Republicans.”
McConnell announced on Thursday that Trump would sign the spending bill to avert a shutdown while declaring a national emergency to get money for his border wall.
Pelosi called Trump’s claim of an emergency at the border an “illusion.” Democrats have long argued that immigration issues, while important and in need of an overhaul, don’t constitute a true emergency.
