It never ceases to amaze me just how misguided so many people in Congress are. Today the reason for my amazement is the vote in the Senate to block President Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border. I get that the Democrats oppose that declaration; they would oppose Mother's Day if Trump were to issue a proclamation celebrating it. It's the 12 Republican senators whose opposition to Trump on this truly surprises me. These are senators who say that they support border security, but they think the President overstepped his constitutional role with this declaration. That's totally idiotic. These people are buying into the storyline being pushed by the mainstream media.
Let me explain this one more time. About 40 years ago, Congress passed a measure that expressly gives to the president the right to declare a national emergency if he sees fit. There are no limits on what the president could call an emergency worthy of such a declaration. Indeed, the only way to overturn such a declaration is for both houses of Congress to vote to do so. The Senate and House have now done this, but President Trump will surely veto the measure. Unless both the House and Senate can come up with a two-thirds majority to override that veto, the emergency declaration will stand. So let's stop here for a moment. There isn't going to be a successful move to override the veto. No court is going to hold that the emergency declaration is improper, or certainly that will be the result in the Supreme Court if one of the Obama judges in the 9th Circuit decides to go off the deep end to try to stop the emergency declaration.
The declaration of an emergency gives the president certain powers according to the statute passed by Congress all those years ago. The main power the president gets after the declaration is the ability to move certain money already appropriated from one project to another in order to deal with the emergency. For example, suppose that there is a major hurricane that hits the Atlantic coast of North Carolina and that serious damage occurs. The president could declare an emergency and could take money already appropriated for certain military construction and move it to instead be used to make emergency repairs to the bridges on the interstate highways in the affected areas. Moving funds from one account to another is exactly what President Trump is doing with his emergency declaration. Military construction funds are to be used for the construction of sections of the border wall.
The Republican fools on Capitol Hill say they are worried that a future Democrat could use an emergency declaration to implement programs like the confiscation of guns or the like. The problem with this point is that the legislation regarding emergencies doesn't give the president the power to do something like that. The president can move money from one account to another so as to have funds to deal with the emergency. The president cannot take away constitutional rights or change laws or enact new ones even after an emergency. Remember, construction of a border wall was expressly authorized by Congress years ago. Money has been appropriated for some of that construction. President Trump was not doing anything more than to move cash from one account to another.
The funny thing about all this is that I know that some of the senators voting against the President know all this. For example, Mitt Romney has a law degree from Harvard Law School; he was in my class. He's a smart guy and he knows how to read a statute. Even so, he's busy voting as if he has no understanding of the issue. He thinks he can gain some political advantage by doing this. Instead, all he is doing is undermining the President. He won't get credit for that move, but there surely will be those who will hold it against him for years to come. He's just another one of the fools on the Hill.
Let me explain this one more time. About 40 years ago, Congress passed a measure that expressly gives to the president the right to declare a national emergency if he sees fit. There are no limits on what the president could call an emergency worthy of such a declaration. Indeed, the only way to overturn such a declaration is for both houses of Congress to vote to do so. The Senate and House have now done this, but President Trump will surely veto the measure. Unless both the House and Senate can come up with a two-thirds majority to override that veto, the emergency declaration will stand. So let's stop here for a moment. There isn't going to be a successful move to override the veto. No court is going to hold that the emergency declaration is improper, or certainly that will be the result in the Supreme Court if one of the Obama judges in the 9th Circuit decides to go off the deep end to try to stop the emergency declaration.
The declaration of an emergency gives the president certain powers according to the statute passed by Congress all those years ago. The main power the president gets after the declaration is the ability to move certain money already appropriated from one project to another in order to deal with the emergency. For example, suppose that there is a major hurricane that hits the Atlantic coast of North Carolina and that serious damage occurs. The president could declare an emergency and could take money already appropriated for certain military construction and move it to instead be used to make emergency repairs to the bridges on the interstate highways in the affected areas. Moving funds from one account to another is exactly what President Trump is doing with his emergency declaration. Military construction funds are to be used for the construction of sections of the border wall.
The Republican fools on Capitol Hill say they are worried that a future Democrat could use an emergency declaration to implement programs like the confiscation of guns or the like. The problem with this point is that the legislation regarding emergencies doesn't give the president the power to do something like that. The president can move money from one account to another so as to have funds to deal with the emergency. The president cannot take away constitutional rights or change laws or enact new ones even after an emergency. Remember, construction of a border wall was expressly authorized by Congress years ago. Money has been appropriated for some of that construction. President Trump was not doing anything more than to move cash from one account to another.
The funny thing about all this is that I know that some of the senators voting against the President know all this. For example, Mitt Romney has a law degree from Harvard Law School; he was in my class. He's a smart guy and he knows how to read a statute. Even so, he's busy voting as if he has no understanding of the issue. He thinks he can gain some political advantage by doing this. Instead, all he is doing is undermining the President. He won't get credit for that move, but there surely will be those who will hold it against him for years to come. He's just another one of the fools on the Hill.
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