The Senate’s attempts to block a national emergency that President Donald Trump declared along the southern border were stymied yet again on Thursday.
The Senate fails to override Trump’s veto on its national emergency resolution
Congress’s attempt to stop Trump’s national emergency has been stymied, again.
Li Zhou is a former politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.
While a majority of lawmakers had previously voted in favor of a resolution to terminate the emergency, which Trump has used to shift funding from other military construction projects to his border wall, not enough ultimately backed it to overcome a veto from the president.
Instead, senators voted 36-53 to uphold Trump’s veto, an expected outcome. At least 20 Republicans would have needed to band with Democrats in order to hit the 67-member supermajority needed to nullify the veto.
Congress is able to take a vote on the emergency every six months, according to the National Emergencies Act of 1976, and Democrats have been keen to use this rule to put both Trump and Republican senators on the spot about the border wall.
The most recent vote, especially, was intended to pressure swing-state Republicans like Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Martha McSally (R-AZ) who are up for reelection in 2020, and whose states are affected by the administration’s raiding of funds. As Vox’s Alex Ward has reported, about half of all 50 states are set to see planned funding shifts. Projects including improvements to the West Point military academy and natural disaster recovery efforts in Puerto Rico are among those that are expected to lose money.
Eleven Republicans voted along with Democrats in favor of blocking the national emergency last month. They are Lamar Alexander (R-TN, Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Rob Portman (R-OH), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).
Many of the same lawmakers voted to override the veto, as well. But several more would need to break with Trump if lawmakers actually want to put a stop to the national emergency.
See More:
