Pelosi will block Senate plan on Trump national emergency declaration

Alex Edelman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks during a luncheon event at the Economic Club of Washington D.C. in Washington, D.C., March 8, 2019.

The House will not take up a Senate GOP bill that could give Republicans political cover as they vote on whether to block President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday.

By promising not to bring the legislation to the floor, Pelosi hopes to put pressure on Republican lawmakers trying to balance their desire to support Trump’s immigration policy and their professed concerns about presidential power.

Last month, the president declared an emergency to secure money for his proposed border wall after Congress allotted less money than he wanted for the project. The Democratic-held House already passed a resolution to block Trump’s declaration.

The Senate will vote on the measure Thursday. While four Republican senators — enough to pass the bill in the Senate with a simple majority — have pledged to back it, some GOP lawmakers have reportedly looked for a way out of dealing an embarrassing blow to Trump. The resolution, which appeared to be a lock to pass the Senate, is less certain to pass now as Republicans seek alternatives.

Pelosi aims to take away an exit ramp for the GOP.

“Republican Senators are proposing new legislation to allow the President to violate the Constitution just this once in order to give themselves cover,” the California Democrat said in a statement Wednesday. “The House will not take up this legislation to give President Trump a pass.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, proposed a plan Tuesday to give Congress more power over presidential emergency declarations. Under the legislation, national emergencies would end after 30 days if Congress does not vote to extend it.

Lee has expressed concerns about executive overreach but so far not said whether he wants to terminate the emergency declared at the southern U.S. border. His bill would not affect Trump’s executive action.

“If Congress is troubled by recent emergency declarations made pursuant to the National Emergencies Act, they only have themselves to blame,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “Congress gave these legislative powers away in 1976 and it is far past time that we as an institution took them back.”

So far, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have said they will vote to block the president’s emergency declaration. However, Tillis “appeared to be wavering” at a weekly Senate policy lunch on Tuesday, according to The New York Times.

Tillis’ support gave the resolution just enough votes to pass, even in a GOP-held chamber where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has backed the president’s declaration. A Tillis spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to comment on whether the senator is reconsidering his vote.

The White House has made a late push to stop the resolution from getting through the Senate. Vice President Mike Pence met with GOP senators Tuesday to try to find an alternative path. Trump has recently tried to pressure Republicans by framing the vote as one about border security rather than executive power.

The president has pledged to veto the bill. Neither the House nor Senate appear to have the two-thirds majority support needed to overcome his opposition.

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