February 16, 2019
Since racism and greed has condemned us to have a “president” with the demented sadism of the demon doll from the “Chucky” franchise, it is only fitting that he would usher in Presidents’ Weekend by announcing an unconstitutional power grab. Yesterday, Trump used the Rose Garden to announce that he was taking by fiat that which he couldn’t achieve legislatively. Aided by his cabal of deeply cynical lawyers in the White House Counsel’s Office, his declaration of emergency was dressed in a thin veneer of legality that was flimsier than a press-on nail.
Trump flouted Congress’ exclusive appropriation power by announcing that he was “redirecting” $600 million of the Treasury Department’s forfeiture funds, $2.5 billion of the funds allocated for drug interdiction at the border and $3.6 billion of the funds allocated for military construction, (Source: “A new, uncertain era for Trump,” by Damian Paletta, Mike DeBonis and John Wagner, The Washington Post, 2/15/19).
In a rambling rant that evoked nothing so much as the syphilitic monarch who ruled America in colonial times,Trump admitted that he “didn’t need to do this,” a glaring admission against interest that would spell doom for his lawless edict in normal times. Unfortunately, we are in anything but normal times. The same statute from which Trump derived his “authority” to declare an emergency contains a mechanism for Congress to terminate that declaration by passing a joint resolution. The relevant statute, 50 U.S.C. §1622, provides that such a resolution, once introduced, must expeditiously be brought to the floor of both houses and cannot be blocked by a filibuster, (Source: “What Authorities is Trump Using to Build. Border Wall?” By Scott Anderson, Margaret Taylor, Lawfare.com, 2/15/19).
While it is likely that the House will pass such a resolution, it’s an open question whether a sufficient number of Senate Republicans will find their spines and check this President. The sad reality is that even if both houses pass the resolution, it won’t be by a veto-proof majority, so Congress ultimately won’t stop him.
The judicial branch is another obvious way to pump the brakes on this abuse of power. Two lawsuits have been filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. and the State of California is teeing up a third. Of course, Trump anticipated this in his remarks, mocking the court’s’ role as a check on unconstitutional overreach by a coequal branch stating, “they will sue us in the Ninth Circuit…we will possibly get a bad ruling… and then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court and we will hopefully get a fair shake,” (Source: “Trump declares national emergency on southern border in bid to build wall,” by Damian Paletta, Mike DeBonis and John Wagner, The Washington Post, 2/15/19). The truth is there is, at best, only a 50-50 chance that the Supreme Court will find his fig leaf of a rationale for an emergency declaration unconstitutional.
The awful truth is that our vaunted democracy, with its elegantly crafted separation of powers, is being stress tested like never before and we can have no expectation that it will work as designed. At noon this Monday, honor the Presidents in our history who upheld the Constitution and the Rule of Law by joining Moveon.org to protest Trump’s illegal power grab. We’d better use every constitutional right that we have, while we still have them.
#FakeTrumpEmergency
#PresidentsDay
#crisisresponse.us