When push comes to shove, President Trump’s wall does not give lawmakers a pass on legislative responsibility.
The Constitution establishes Congress as a co-equal branch with the executive. Lawmakers must be willing to wield that power rather than simply bowing to whims of the Oval Office, even if means opposing a president of their own party.
At its most basic, that is the principle behind the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. And one of those checks, granted to Congress, is the possibility of overriding a presidential veto. That’s an important tool as it prevents the executive from wielding unmatched authority, including holding the government hostage and preventing the passage of new laws.
In the past, this power has been used sparsely. That’s in part because the threshold of votes needed to override a veto is a high bar — a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate.
But even if difficult to use, that power remains important, and exercising such checks and balances is a key responsibility of lawmakers and should not simply be tossed out.
Unfortunately, that basic application of civics seems lost on some Republicans. For example, speaking Wednesday, Sen. Tom Tillis R-N.C., explained, “I’m going to defer to the president on the best strategy, and I would never vote to override a veto on something that the president didn’t think was the best approach.”
Supporting the president, at least to some degree, is undeniably important for a Republican senator. Politics is still a team sport. But it is not the only responsibly of lawmakers. The primary task of Congress is governing and passing laws — including funding for vital operations like the Coast Guard, the Department of Justice, the IRS, Customs and Border Protection, and other agencies currently shuttered.
And if Trump is willing to make good on his promise to keep the government shut down for “as long as it takes,” then the responsibility to get the country up and running again, with or without Trump’s blessing, does fall to Congress.
That means that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., along with Senate Republicans, must entertain a vote on legislation funding the government already passed by the House with some Republican support and allow a vote to proceed. That does not mean giving into demands for Democrats, but rather in congressional tradition, working out a compromise that serves the interest of the people.
Holding such a vote also does not mean that the legislation would pass or that a veto could be overturned. But voting, and having to take a stand on the shutdown impasse, is exercising legislative power. Refusing to vote or even consider the possibility of opposing the president is not.
Although three Republican senators have indicated support for considering reopening the government without funding for the wall, other indicators are less encouraging.
In a Fox News interview on Tuesday, for example, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seemed to echo Tillis, arguing, “If we undercut the president, that’s the end of his presidency and the end of our party.”
Not only is that stance unhelpful to reaching a compromise on border security, but it’s also not true.
The Republican Party, champions of the Constitution, liberty, limited government, and fiscal responsibility, among other principles, are much more than the policies of one man who seems to espouse few, if any, of those core beliefs. Exchanging those principles for blind loyalty to Trump, in abdication of legislative responsibility and as American’s suffer the consequences of the government shutdown, will ultimately do far more damage.
People voted for their representatives to govern, not to answer every beck and call from the Oval Office. A presidential demand for money to fulfill a campaign promise does not change that.
