Phony wall…
be vindicated by the Supreme Court. Critics of the move expect things to turn out differently. Whatever the outcome, the legal issues are complex, and the case could wind up bogged down indefinitely, meaning not much wall for now.
Moving from the legal to the political realm, Republican lawmakers will very likely to find themselves in a pickle. Congress has the power to override a national emergency declaration by passing a joint resolution. To prevent opponents from stalling the bill indefinitely, once one chamber passes the resolution, the other must hold a vote on it within 18 calendar days. House Democrats have already announced their intention to hold such a vote, and are expected to prevail. This will then put Senate Republicans in the position of having to vote on whether to support a presidential grab of Congress’s power.
To survive a presidential veto, such a measure would need to pass with two thirds of the votes in both chambers — which seems unlikely. But the vote itself will prove awkward for Re- publicans, forcing them to go on record as to whether they have officially abandoned their constitutional duties.
Then there’s the violence this will do the budget process — not exactly a smooth-running machine as is. But if members of Congress start worrying that money appropriated for one purpose will be clawed back by the White House and handed over for a different one, look for spending battles to get bloodier still. Some of the money to be raided for the wall will come from military construction projects in Republican states like Kentucky and North Carolina.
Which brings us to the question of precedent. In defending his declaration, Mr. Trump and his team keep asserting that emergency declarations are not unusual. The president called them “a great thing” that other presidents have done “many, many times.”
Since 1976, such declarations have been used 59 times. But most have been uncontroversial and involved matters of foreign policy. Declaring an emergency simply because Congress refused to fund the president’s pet project is seen even by members of his own party as setting a dangerous precedent. As Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican, warned, “For the president to use it to repurpose billions of dollars that Congress has appropriated for other purposes and that he has previously signed into law, strikes me as undermining the appropriations process, the vote of Congress and being of dubious constitutionality.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised broader issues on Friday. “This issue transcends partisan politics and goes to the core of the Founders’ conception for America, which commands Congress to limit an overreaching executive,” she said in a statement with Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader. “The president’s emergency declaration, if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, inconsistent with our Founders’ vision.”
“We call upon our Republican colleagues to join us to defend the Constitution,” they added. “The Congress cannot let the president shred the Constitution.”
Mr. Trump betrays no interest in the collateral damage wreaked by his actions. This move will come back to bite him and his party. The question is when, and how hard.