The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Senate has votes to reject emergency
Majority leader confirms Monday that measure has the votes.
With Sen. Rand Paul’s decision to support a resolution to block President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration, Congress appears ready to deliver a rebuke to the president over his border wall and a clear statement that it will defend its ability to control federal spending.
Paul, a libertarian-minded Kentuckian, said he will join fellow Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, giving proponents of the resolution of disapproval the 51 votes they need, if Democrats remain united in their support.
On Monday, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, confirmed that the measure has the votes to pass the Senate. Senate leadership, he said, has been conferring with the Senate parliamentarian to see if the House-passed resolution could be amended before the vote.
The remaining question: How stern a rebuke will the Senate deliver?
Here’s what to watch for as more Republican senators prepare to announce how they will vote on the resolution.
The pragmatists
Trump is hoping to divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects to his cherished wall at the southwestern border, effectively subverting lawmakers and the budget they set.
Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who pride themselves on bipartisanship, have raised concern that Trump is taking funds that were carefully doled out after months of negotiation in the bill that he signed last month to fund the government through Sept. 30. His declaration marks the first time the National Emergency Act has been invoked because Congress has denied the president funds.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the president should use funds already approved by Congress, for instance from Defense Department accounts to support interdiction of illegal drugs.
The strict Constitutionalists
Multiple Republican senators have expressed unease about the precedent set by the declaration and the potential that a future Democratic president could use a national emergency declaration for liberal purposes, once Congress forfeits its exclusive, constitutionally granted power of the purse.
Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah have all voiced concern on the constitutional question, though none of them has explicitly promised to overturn the emergency declaration.
Even McConnell acknowledged Monday that the precedent was a concern.
Supporters of the declaration say that the president is within his rights to use powers that Congress gave him through the National Emergencies Act in the 1970s.
The politically vulnerable
Republican senators facing a difficult re-election campaign next year are confronting a dilemma: Stick with Trump’s core voters or side with swing voters who largely oppose the wall and the emergency declaration to fund it.
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., hailing from a state that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, may be the most vulnerable Republican up for re-election next year, and he has not declared where he stands.
Nor has Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., another targeted Republican up for election next year.