US House blocks Trump’s emergency

WASHINGTON: More than a dozen Republicans joined Democrats to pass a resolution in the US House of Representatives to overturn President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to fund a wall along the border with Mexico.

The one-page resolution disapproving the emergency declaration, which was introduced last Friday, passed the Democraticled House 245-182 with 13 Republicans voting for the legislative measure, disregarding the president’s appeal to block it.

The measure now goes to the Republican-led Senate where it has the support of some Republicans, but not enough to vote it through. Even if it does pass the chamber, the president has said he will veto it. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-third majority in each chamber, and that does not appear likely. While opposed to the president’s border wall, Democrats have framed their resistance to the emergency as an attempt by the executive branch to go around the Congress, which controls the federal government’s purse-strings and which has

THE MEASURE IS NOW BEFORE SENATE, WHERE THERE WERE ENOUGH GOP DEFECTIONS TO EDGE THE RESOLUTION TO THE BRINK OF PASSAGE, THOUGH PRESIDENT TRUMP HAD VOWED TO VETO IT

approved only a part of the money Trump had sought for the wall, to find the rest with appropriations approved for other purposes, chiefly the department of defence.

“Is your oath of office to Donald Trump or is it to the Constitution of the United States?” House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, asked Republicans in a speech before the vote. “You cannot let him undermine your pledge to the Constitution.”

Many Republicans agreed. And some among them voted for the resolution but others stayed on the side of the president and the party leadership because of their support for the wall.