Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, a few weeks ago, I was talking with my staff, in advance of the President issuing the emergency order, and I told them I wanted to put together an op-ed to really express two things; one, my concern with the manner in which funds were being appropriated but also that there is a real crisis we have to address. In fact, I am very sympathetic to what the President did, and the only question is how he went about doing it.

I received a lot of feedback over the past few weeks, but what it allowed me to do was to engage in a discussion with some of my colleagues here and with the White House over the past couple of weeks that have been very productive.

My main concern with this Executive action is future potential abuses. I have a concern with the Executive action the President took, the emergency order, and that is why I voiced it, but I am sympathetic to what he was trying to do.

I think we can view this as an opportunity--I thought we could view this as an opportunity where maybe we could have a discussion about the National Emergencies Act and potentially make a real difference.

So today, I come to the floor to say that I do not intend to vote for the resolution of disapproval, and here is why. A lot has changed over the last 3 weeks--a discussion with the Vice President and a number of senior administration officials, a lot of collaboration with my colleague from Utah. There is serious discussion about changing the National Emergencies Act in a way that will have Congress speak on emergency actions in the future.

The White House has been very gracious and I should say very patient, given my initial position, in working with us and as late as today having the President make a statement that he is willing to work with us. I suspect that we will hear more from the President.

We also heard today from Leader McConnell. I was trying to remember-- I don't know whether it has been done before--Leader McConnell took to the floor this morning and said that he encourages this discussion through the regular order and working on a bipartisan basis to move a measure forward through the Homeland Security Committee and to this floor for a vote. I, for one, am going to work on that and hopefully get consensus on a bipartisan basis after the temperatures have cooled and we can move on.

In the meantime, I think we have to recognize that we have a crisis at the border, with 76,000 people crossing illegally in February alone. We have narcotics flooding our country, poisoning our children and adults of all ages. A lot of it has to do with the porous border and the seemingly unending and spiraling-out-of-control crossings.

One of the challenges that I have to communicate to my constituents, and I am sure everyone does, is how do I reconcile--first, I should say that my colleagues on this side of the aisle who will vote for the resolution of disapproval I think to a person also recognize that there is a crisis. I respect them for their decision; it is just not a decision that I can take.

Over the course of the next few months, I look forward to working with the administration to talk about boundaries that we are very close to getting agreement on and making changes to the National Emergencies Act that will make sense.

The fact that this President is prepared to transfer power back to the article I branch--by his statements, either publicly or through his administration--is extraordinary. That we have a leader, with a Republican down the street, willing to move this through the regular order is extraordinary.

For those reasons, I will be voting against the resolution of disapproval, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

Thank you.

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