WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to overturn President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration, delivering a harsh rebuke to the president’s attempt to go around Congress to fund a border wall.
Every Democrat voted in favor, along with 13 Republicans. The Senate will vote on the resolution in the coming weeks, where just four Republican votes are needed approve it and send it to the president’s desk for his first veto.
The unprecedented vote to block Trump’s emergency order is the first piece of Democrats’ multipronged attempt to halt the president’s unilateral attempt to spend billions of dollars without Congress’s approval, which both parties acknowledge is likely to land in the Supreme Court.
Republicans in the House will largely fall in line behind Trump, under immense pressure from Republican leaders, White House aides, and the president himself.
Still, Democratic leaders made a last-ditch attempt to shore up Republican support on Tuesday, with dramatic floor speeches that referenced the “founding fathers” and Martin Luther King, Jr. to argue against Trump’s constitutional power grab.
“That’s how despots take power,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on the floor before the vote.
“Fidelity to the president, or fidelity to the constitution. That is the choice we make today. That is why this is a pivotal moment,” Hoyer declared.
“We have a constitutional mission and a mandate to preserve the balance of power and to oppose this monument of hate,” Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon, said in another fiery floor speech ahead of the vote.
Some Republicans have echoed similar constitutional concerns, with a small group called the House Liberty Caucus — led by libertarian Representative Justin Amash (R-Mich.) — urging support for the measure.
“This national emergency declaration does not conform to our constitution,” the group, which boasts eight members, wrote in a statement.
In the Senate, Democrats are inching toward a victory. Just one more Republican supporter is needed to send the measure to Trump’s desk. Congress has never previously voted to overturn a president’s national emergency declaration.
So far, three Republican senators — Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis — have signaled they will support the measure to overturn Trump’s national emergency declaration over border security. Several other Republicans have declined to disclose their plans but have voiced concerns for weeks, putting Trump on the verge of an embarrassing repudiation, even if he can veto the legislation.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her deputies have spent weeks pitching the measure as a constitutional duty, rather than as a partisan ploy by newly emboldened Democrats who seem eager to humiliate Trump.
“This is the most significant vote that this Congress has taken, probably in a generation, on the balances of powers between the president and Congress,” Representative Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), who drafted the resolution, told reporters Tuesday ahead of the vote.
Democrats also are likely to take on the president through the courts: Sixteen states have launched a legal challenge to block Trump’s national emergency declaration.
Castro and Democratic leaders have targeted their outreach to Republican lawmakers who have been skeptical of the legality of the president’s actions.
“I think it’s tough for them because many do respect the constitution, and at the same time, they’re afraid of being out of favor with Donald Trump and getting a primary opponent,” Castro said.
Democrats had also hoped to win over support from Republican defense hawks, many of whom have privately lashed out at the White House’s plan to raid the Pentagon’s military construction budget to fund the border projects. The House’s spending panel had been circulating a list of hundreds of projects from Kentucky to Alaska that could be affected by Trump’s tactics.
But most Republicans were unwilling to take a public stand against Trump over legislation that he has said he would “100 percent” veto — which would be the first of his presidency.
The White House issued a formal veto threat on Tuesday afternoon, while offering a preview of its own legal defense. Administration officials argued that the situation on the border does constitute an emergency, citing “sharp increases” in the number of families and unaccompanied minors crossing the border in recent years.
The number of people apprehended at the southern border rose about 30 percent between 2017 and 2018, including a 40 percent increase in families, according to U.S. customs officials. Both figures are still down from 2016, however.
White House officials also argued that former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama used the same authority for “more than 18 different military construction projects between 2001 and 2013.”
Castro acknowledged Tuesday that House Democrats would face an “uphill battle” in overriding Trump’s veto, which would require more than 50 Republicans in the House. “But we’re going to keep working at it,” Castro said.
Republicans, including senior members of the party’s leadership, had been skittish about the White House circumventing Congress to build a border wall even before Trump made the formal declaration. Many lawmakers said they hoped he wouldn’t take such a drastic step.
Several acknowledged that backing Trump on the emergency order would amount to hypocrisy after Republicans railed against Obama for his own unilateral actions on immigration as president.
Even this week, Republicans like Representative Tom Cole (R-Okla.) called the White House’s move an “unwelcome precedent,” while nonetheless vowing to vote against Democrats on the floor.
White House officials, along with the Department of Defense, have mounted a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to ease some Republican lawmakers’ anxiety about the president’s move.
Representative Roger Williams (R-Texas), for example, said he was personally reassured last week that Pentagon funding would continue to flow to Fort Hood — one of the military’s largest outposts in the U.S. — which lies in his district.
“I’ve been told now by the powers that be that existing construction won’t be affected,” Williams said Monday night, adding that he plans to vote against the Democratic measure.
Melanie Zanona contributed reporting.