Friday, February 15, 2019
Staff/wire report
WASHINGTON
Congress lopsidedly approved a border security compromise Thursday that would avert a second painful government shutdown, but a new confrontation was ignited – this time over President Donald Trump’s plan to bypass lawmakers and declare a national emergency to siphon billions from other federal coffers for his wall on the Mexican boundary.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown both rebuked Trump’s planned declaration of a national emergency to fund a border wall.
“While I support the compromise to keep the government open, President Trump should not be using the declaration of a national emergency to address border security,” said Ryan, of Howland, D-13th. “We aren’t going to solve this through an executive overreach. We need targeted, fact-based solutions.”
He added: “We need to prioritize good policy over politics. That’s why the commission will not include any current elected officials or political appointees. We have to put an end to the endless bickering, grandstanding, and fearmongering that too often accompanies a debate over immigration reform, DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals], asylum seekers and border security. If we fail to address these issues now, they will only divide our country further.”
Brown, a Cleveland Democrat, said: “Any effort to take funding away from our military to support the president’s vanity project is reckless and irresponsible. The president needs to drop the threats, sign this bill and stop standing in the way of important work like protecting pensions for millions of workers and retirees, bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, or rewriting the tax code to put people first.”
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican from the Cincinnati area, said in a statement: “I am pleased that President Trump will sign this bipartisan funding agreement into law. I supported this bill because it takes important steps in the right direction on border security and because it avoids another government shutdown.
“I’ve said repeatedly that the president has a responsible plan to strengthen our border security. This agreement includes nearly $1.4 billion for new barriers and fencing, which will result in another 55 miles of new barriers along the border where it is needed most, according to the experts. This is the most funding that has ever been provided by Congress in a single year on barrier construction. We need to do more, but this is a positive step forward.”
Money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a quarter of the 200-plus miles he wanted. The White House said he’d sign the legislation but act unilaterally to get the rest, prompting immediate condemnation from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing his authority.
The uproar over Trump’s next move cast an uncertain shadow over what had been a rare display of bipartisanship to address the grinding battle between the White House and lawmakers over border security.
The Senate passed the legislation 83-16, with both parties solidly on board. The House followed with a 300-128 tally, with Trump’s signature planned Friday.
Democrats overwhelmingly backed the legislation, with only 19 – most of whom were Hispanic – opposed. Just over half of Republicans voted “no.”
Should Trump change his mind, both margins were above the two-thirds majorities needed to override presidential vetoes. Lawmakers, however, sometimes rally behind presidents of the same party in such battles.
Lawmakers exuded relief that the agreement had averted a fresh closure of federal agencies just three weeks after a record-setting 35-day partial shutdown that drew an unambiguous thumbs-down from the public. But in announcing that Trump would sign the accord, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also said he’d take “other executive action, including a national emergency.”
In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said such a declaration would be “a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract” from Trump’s failure to force Mexico to pay for the wall, as he’s promised for years.
“Congress will defend our constitutional authorities,” they said. They declined to say whether that meant lawsuits or votes on resolutions to prevent Trump from unilaterally shifting money to wall-building, with aides saying they would wait to see what he does.
Democratic state attorneys general said they would consider legal action to block Trump. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told the president on Twitter “we’ll see you in court” if he makes the declaration.
Despite widespread opposition in Congress to proclaiming an emergency, including by some Republicans, Trump is under pressure to act unilaterally to soothe his conservative base and avoid looking like he’s surrendered in his wall battle.