Senate again rejects border emergency
— The Senate WASHINGTON voted Wednesday for a second time to terminate the national emergency that President Donald Trump declared at the southwestern border, in a bipartisan rejection of Trump’s bid to build a wall without congressional approval.
But the 54-41 vote, in which 11 Republicans joined Democrats to break with the president over his signature domestic priority, fell short of the margin that would be needed to overcome a presidential veto, ensuring that Trump would be able to continue to redirect military funding to build a barrier on the southwestern border.
The tally was nearly identical to the result of a vote in March, when Congress first sought to block the national emergency declaration and a dozen Republicans joined all Democrats present for the vote. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who voted in March to overturn the emergency declaration, did not vote Wednesday. Rubio had a previously scheduled family matter to attend to, but would have voted again to reject the emergency declaration, his office said.
Democrats who forced the vote knew at the start that they were unlikely to draw enough Republican support to overcome a certain veto by Trump, but they pursued it anyway in an effort to apply political pressure on Republicans. It confronted Republicans with a choice between breaking with a president who demands loyalty and preserving money Congress had set aside for military projects in their states, and sticking with Trump’s border wall, even at the expense of their own constituents.
Heightening the political tension around the vote, the Pentagon this month unveiled a list of military construction projects that would be delayed as a result of the national emergency declaration. The vote in March, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, noted on Tuesday, “was before the Republicans knew which projects in their own states were at issue.”
“It’s going to be fascinating,” he said, “to see, now that they know that their states’ projects are being affected, whether they will stand up for our military and stand up for their states’ projects or cave into the president.”
Four members of the Democratic caucus who are running for president — Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent — were also absent on Wednesday.
The House, set to leave for two weeks of work in their districts at the end of the week, will most likely take up the resolution when both chambers return in October.
Democrats, who unanimously backed the measure, have vowed to continue to force votes on the national emergency — which under law they can do every six months — in part as a way to continue cornering Republicans who face tough reelection challenges. Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Cory Gardner of Colorado were among the Republicans who voted in lock step with the president, though projects in their states are slated for funding delays.
The list of 127 projects that will be delayed to fund the border wall includes schools in desperate need of repair, new fire stations and health care centers, and in Puerto Rico, projects targeted after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
Some of the Republicans who supported the measure contended that their votes were meant primarily to protect Congress’ ability to control the power of the purse, rather than as a rejection of Trump’s border wall.
“We must stand up and defend our role that the framers very clearly set forth in the Constitution,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who took to the Senate floor ahead of the vote to plead with her colleagues to support the resolution. Collins is facing a competitive reelection race next year.
McSally, for her part, has offered a resolution that would instruct lawmakers negotiating the defense policy bill for the 2020 fiscal year to insist upon replenishing the military construction funds. The version of the bill the House passed does not provide any funds to backfill those projects.
But if lawmakers fail to agree to do so, the projects are effectively canceled. Democrats in both chambers have repeatedly said that they have no intention of including the additional money in either legislation.
“Are my Republican friends really going to go home to their states and districts to defend President Trump’s shameless plundering of resources from our troops?” Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, asked on Tuesday.