President Trump next week will win a legislative victory of sorts, when House Democrats fail to override the first veto of his presidency.
Trump has vetoed a resolution aimed at stopping him from using $3.6 billion in military funding to build a wall on the southern border. To override that veto, the House and Senate need to find a two-thirds majority.
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But the votes aren’t there in the House. Last month, just 13 Republicans voted with Democrats to block Trump’s emergency declaration, but Democrats would need more than 50 Republicans to vote against Trump to override his veto.
“House Democrats will not have anywhere near the votes they need to override President Trump’s veto,” said Lauren Fine, spokeswoman for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La. “House Republicans have stood strongly with President Trump on securing our nation’s border and overwhelmingly supported his emergency declaration by large margins when we voted on this weeks ago. This will not change.”
Democrats realize the measure won’t pass but said the vote will support court challenges to the emergency declaration by showing Congress believes Trump violated the Constitution.
“Whether we can succeed with the number of votes is not the point,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a press conference this week. “We are establishing the intent of Congress. We are Article I, the first branch of government, the legislative branch. The president has decided to be in defiance of the Constitution, to deface it with his actions.”
Democrats are hoping the more than a half-dozen court challenges to Trump’s Feb. 15 emergency declaration will block Trump from moving the money, which would come from the Pentagon’s military construction budget.
California, El Paso, Texas, and the Sierra Club, among others, have sued to stop Trump’s emergency declaration.
This week, the Defense Department identified a list of “excess” military construction funding that might be shifted to the border wall project.
Republicans, like Democrats, are largely opposed to the president moving money allocated by Congress. But many in the GOP believe Trump’s actions are legal under the 1976 National Emergencies Act, which gives the president special powers if activated.
Senate Republicans are now examining legislation to rein in the act to prevent future money grabs by the executive branch.
“I think most of my members now believe this is not a constitutional issue in that sense, but rather is this grant of authority to any president — not just this one, any president,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. “Was it too broad back in the ’70s when it was passed?”
