Senate Voting Agains Emergincy Border Issue
Senate Again Rejects Trump's Border Emergency, only Falls Short of a Veto-Proof Majority
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Wednesday for a second time to finish the national emergency that President Trump declared at the southwestern border, in a bipartisan rejection of Mr. Trump'south bid to build a wall without congressional approval.
But the 54-to-41 vote, in which 11 Republicans joined Democrats to pause with the president over his signature domestic priority, barbarous short of the margin that would exist needed to overcome a presidential veto, ensuring that Mr. Trump would exist able to continue to redirect armed services funding to build a barrier on the southwestern edge.
The tally was near identical to the result of a vote in March, when Congress offset sought to block the national emergency declaration and a dozen Republicans joined all Democrats present for the vote. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who voted in March to overturn the emergency declaration, did not vote on Wednesday. Mr. Rubio had a previously scheduled family matter to nourish to, merely would have voted over again to pass up the emergency declaration, his office said.
Democrats who forced the vote knew at the commencement that they were unlikely to draw enough Republican support to overcome a sure veto past Mr. Trump, but they pursued it anyhow in an effort to apply political pressure on Republicans. It confronted Republicans with a option between breaking with a president who demands loyalty and preserving money Congress had set aside for military projects in their states, and sticking with Mr. Trump'south border wall, even at the expense of their own constituents.
Heightening the political tension effectually the vote, the Pentagon this calendar month unveiled a list of war machine structure projects that would be delayed as a upshot of the national emergency declaration. The vote in March, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, noted on Tuesday, "was before the Republicans knew which projects in their ain states were at issue."
"It'south going to be fascinating," he said, "to run across, now that they know that their states' projects are being afflicted, whether they will stand up for our military and stand for their states' projects or cave into the president."
Four members of the Democratic caucus who are running for president — Senators 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, fix to leave at the terminate of the week for two weeks of piece of work in their districts, could take upwards the resolution as early as Friday.
Democrats, who unanimously backed the measure, accept vowed to continue to force votes on the national emergency — which under police force they can do every half dozen months — in part equally a way to go on cornering Republicans who face tough re-election challenges. Senators Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of N Carolina and Cory Gardner of Colorado were amidst the Republicans who voted in lock stride with the president, though projects in their states are slated for funding delays.
The list of 127 projects that will exist delayed to fund the edge wall includes schools in drastic demand of repair, new burn down stations and health care centers, and in Puerto Rico, projects targeted after Hurricane Maria devastated the isle in 2017.
Some of the Republicans who supported the mensurate contended that their votes were meant primarily to protect Congress's power to control the power of the handbag, rather than every bit a rejection of Mr. Trump's border wall.
"Nosotros must stand up and defend our function that the framers very clearly set along in the Constitution," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who took to the Senate flooring ahead of the vote to plead with her colleagues to support the resolution. Ms. Collins is facing a competitive re-election race side by side year.
Republicans who voted confronting the measure, for their part, scoffed at what Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, called a "show vote," arguing that the national emergency had only been declared as a upshot of an unwillingness past Democrats to compromise on the border wall.
"Democratic leadership would similar to invent a false pick betwixt border security and other important war machine structure projects," Mr. McConnell said in a floor spoken language. "The merely reason there'southward whatsoever trade-off is that Democrats accept refused to work with the president."
Mr. McConnell stressed, as Pentagon officials take done in conversations with lawmakers in recent days, that the funds for the projects were simply delayed, since Congress tin supersede the coin in either the annual defence authorization policy or the must-laissez passer spending bills that allocate funding for the side by side fiscal year.
Ms. McSally, for her part, has offered a resolution that would instruct lawmakers negotiating the defense policy bill for the 2020 financial year to insist upon replenishing the military construction funds. The version of the pecker the Firm passed does non provide whatever funds to backfill those projects.
But if lawmakers fail to agree to do then, the projects are finer canceled. Democrats in both chambers have repeatedly said that they take no intention of including the additional money in either legislation.
"Are my Republican friends really going to go habitation to their states and districts to defend President Trump's shameless plundering of resources from our troops?" Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the height Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Commission, asked on Tuesday. "We must not allow this president to invoke such sweeping powers — powers we granted to him for existent emergencies — simply to address some emergency he has concocted in his head."
Left unresolved is the broader argue over whether to allocate additional money to armed services construction in order to recoup for the delay in funds, too as whether to provide for additional coin for new barriers at the southwestern border. The Senate has struggled to move forrard with some of the 12 must-pass spending bills in part considering of objections from Democrats over the scope of the assistants's reprogramming authority and the efforts to fund the president's border wall.
Lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Committee have proposed $5 billion for the border wall in their initial version of the bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security. The full committee is gear up to debate the legislation on Thursday.
"Right now, our position is no money for the wall," said Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, Democrat of California and the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Commission that funds the Section of Homeland Security. "Information technology's but outrageous when they're cutting from other critical programs, non but social programs, but other programs that are important to our national defence force."
"We'll simply have to see what happens," she said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/politics/senate-vote-trump-national-emergency.html
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