Senate may deny Trump’s wall move
Paul could vote to overturn emergency
WASHINGTON — Opponents of President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.Mexico border appear to have enough Senate votes to reject his move, now that Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he can’t go along with the White House.
The House has voted to derail the action, and if the Senate follows later this month, the measure overturning Mr. Trump’s declaration would go to Mr. Trump for his promised veto.
Three other Republican senators have announced they’ll back the resolution — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Though Mr. Paul did not explicitly say whether his opposition to giving “extra-constitutional powers to the president” would lead him to vote for the measure, he is seen as making it four.
And assuming that all 47 Democrats and their independent allies go against Mr. Trump, that would give opponents 51 votes — just past the majority needed.
After the House, largely on party lines, on Tuesday passed the resolution, under the National Emergencies Act of 1976,
the Senate is required to vote on the resolution in the coming weeks.
Congress is not expected to have the votes to override.
“I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress,” Mr. Paul said at a GOP dinner Saturday night at Western Kentucky University, according to the Bowling Green (Ky.) Daily News.
“We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing.”
Many lawmakers opposed to the emergency declaration say it tramples Congress’ constitutional power to control spending and would set a precedent for future Democratic presidents to make such a declaration for their own purposes. They also are concerned Mr. Trump would siphon money from home-state projects to barrier construction.
Under the declaration, Mr. Trump would divert $3.6 billion from military construction to erect more border barriers. He’s invoking other powers to transfer an additional $3.1 billion to construction.
Republicans worry that if they oppose Mr. Trump’s order, they face the wrath of not only the president but his political base — and possibly a primary challenge.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who has been critical of Trump’s emergency declaration, delivered a floor speech Thursday in which he outlined what he described as an alternative way for the president to get the money he wants to build his wall. But Mr. Alexander has declined to say how he would vote on the disapproval resolution.
Asked about Mr. Paul’s decision, his spokesman Sergio Gor said it “speaks for itself” and declined to elaborate further.
Mr. Paul’s statements at the Southern Kentucky Lincoln Day Dinner came on the same night that Mr. Trump — delivering a stemwinder Saturday that extended beyond two hours and hardly left him winded — defended his declaration of a national emergency to obtain wall funding beyond the $1.4 billion that Congress approved for border security.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Mr. Trump said his emergency declaration doesn’t set a bad precedent for future administrations because Democrats are “going to do that anyway, folks. The best way to stop that is to make sure I win the election.”
While a veto by Mr. Trump would be on track to be sustained, the legality of Mr. Trump’s action also will be fought out in the courts.
After a 35-day government shutdown, precipitated by a partisan fight over border security, Mr. Trump agreed to sign a bipartisan spending bill that provided $1.4 billion for physical barriers on the border –– far short of what he was demanding. At the same time, he signed an emergency declaration to shift $3.5 billion from military construction accounts to the border wall.