Declaration of National Emergency

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before Congress went out of session 2 weeks ago, President Trump announced that he was declaring a national emergency to redirect funds to the construction of a border wall. It was a lawless act, a gross abuse of power, and an attempt by the President to distract from the fact that he broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for the wall.

Let me give a few reasons why the President's emergency is so wrong.

First, there is no evidence of an emergency at the border. Illegal border crossings have been declining for 20 years.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Even the President himself, who is now declaring an emergency, halfway through his meandering speech proclaiming the emergency, said: ``I didn't need to do this . . . but I'd rather do it [build the wall] much faster.''

If there was ever a statement that says this is not an emergency, that is it. He said he didn't need to do this. So, my colleagues, my dear colleagues, if we are going to let the President, any President, on a whim, declare emergencies just because he or she can't get their way in the Congress, we have fundamentally changed the building blocks, these strong, proud building blocks that the Founding Fathers put into place.

Second, the President's emergency declaration could cannibalize funding from worthy projects all over the country. We don't even know yet which projects he is planning to take the funds from. I ask my colleagues to think about that--what important initiatives in your State are on the Trump chopping block? What military project will the President cancel to fund the border wall Congress rejected?

Third, and I made this point a little bit at the beginning, but it bears repeating. Far and away most importantly, the President's emergency declaration is a fundamental distortion of our constitutional order. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, not the President, and congressional intent on the border wall is clear. The President's wall has been before Congress several times, and not once has it garnered enough votes to merit consideration. In some cases it was with Republican votes. The President said that it was just the Democrats who blocked it. That is not true. There were Republican votes when the wall was on the floor for voting as well.

As the great New Yorker, Justice Jackson from Jamestown, NY, observed, the President's legal authority in the realm of emergencies is at its very weakest when it goes against the expressed will of Congress. In case the will of Congress was not already clear, soon it will be made so. The obvious remedy for President Trump's outrageous and lawless declaration is for Congress to vote to terminate the state of emergency. The House will vote on such a resolution tomorrow, and the Senate will soon follow suit.

I know my friends on the other side of the aisle fashion themselves supporters of the military, defenders of property rights, and stewards of the Constitution, as do Democrats. This vote on the resolution to terminate the state of emergency will test our fidelity to those principles.

Congress should come together to reject in a bipartisan fashion--we have come together before in bipartisan ways. If ever there were one moment that cries out for bipartisan rejection of an overreach of power, this is it. We should reject this naked power grab, this defacement of our constitutional balance of powers, for what seem to be largely political purposes.

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