House likely to pass resolution blocking Trump’s emergency

WASHINGTON : The Democraticcontrolled House of Representatives is expected to pass a resolution on Tuesday to overturn US President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration.

Trump, who is in Vietnam for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will keep an eye on the vote. In a tweet before departing for Hanoi, he urged Republicans to stay together and defeat the measure.the Republicans’ only play will be to contain the vote margin by preventing defections from their ranks.

The one-page resolution was introduced last Friday and will be put to a vote on Tuesday. The Republican-held Senate will have a week thereafter for its own vote. The resolution is not expected to clear the Senate, and even if it did, Trump can veto it, and he will.

Trump declared the national emergency to fund a border wall along Mexico, with budgets approved by the US Congress for other purposes, mostly for the defence department. Though opposed to the wall, Democrats have framed their opposition to the national emergency as an executive branch overreach, in breach of the Constitution. They have accused Trump of overlooking Congress, which controls the government’s purse-strings, to find the money it had denied to him. “The effort to end the #Fakeemergency is not about partisanship—it is about patriotism,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted on Monday. “Every Member of Congress swears an oath to protect & defend the Constitution. We must not abandon that responsibility now.”