Emergency Declaration

[SilverFang01]

Trump is planning on joining the ranks of countless other autocrats in declaring a false emergency to assume special powers: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47247726

I don’t trust or believe any GOP politician saying that they will oppose this. Their actions these past years have clearly shown where their interests lie.

[robkelk]

I'm rather hoping that the Republican Senators mean what they say in opposing this... and are willing to follow through with it.

Why? Because under Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, only Congress has the power to apportion monies for the Armed Forces. Such a blatant disregard for the Constitution's measures on the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches is IMHO grounds for impeachment.

[SilverFang01]

I'm rather hoping that the Republican Senators mean what they say in opposing this... and are willing to follow through with it.

Why? Because under Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, only Congress has the power to apportion monies for the Armed Forces. Such a blatant disregard for the Constitution's measures on the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches is IMHO grounds for impeachment.

That presumes that republicans are willing, which I would find surprising.

Notice the silence of all those people and pundits “concerned” with the Constitution back in the Obama presidency.

[Bob Schroeck]

Do remember that at least some Republicans, aware that they are not a thousand-year-reich, are worrying about what happens when there's a Democratic president who wants to do the same thing, and don't want the precedent to have been established.

[Bob Schroeck]

And he's done it.

[SilverFang01]

Do remember that at least some Republicans, aware that they are not a thousand-year-reich, are worrying about what happens when there's a Democratic president who wants to do the same thing, and don't want the precedent to have been established.

I try, but it’s getting harder and harder to be honest. Once I run some numbers, I’ll be upping my contribution to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, and donate to some organizations working on the immigrant issue.

[Black Aeronaut]

I’m a bit more worried about the other issue: he’s gunning for a second term.

[classicdrogn]

NPR interviewer just now (paraphrased because my memory is not that good): "Does it concern you that the President has circumvented Congress?"
Colorado R congressritter Doug Lambert: "I'll be supporting the President."

Sooo... don't be holding your breath too much about seeing the Constitution upheld.

[Dartz]

Isn't the phrase "Unchecked President"? Or something like that....

[Matrix Dragon]

Authoritarian Tactic Number Six...

[Isodecan]

I'm rather hoping that the Republican Senators mean what they say in opposing this... and are willing to follow through with it.

Why? Because under Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, only Congress has the power to apportion monies for the Armed Forces. Such a blatant disregard for the Constitution's measures on the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches is IMHO grounds for impeachment.

Regrettably, the Constitution does allow for delegation of authorities granted to a branch of government, and over the last 40 years or so, Congress has granted lots of "emergency" powers to the President.  Of course, they can vote that a state of emergency does not actually exist, but unfortunately due to later modifications to the laws and court interpretations they would have to pass that decision with a veto proof majority in both houses.  Hopefully there are enough Republicans who realize that they do not want to try to live with the precedent this would set.

[robkelk]

House of Representatives votes to block Trump's emergency order 245-182

Now it goes to the Senate.

Senate passage would force Trump's first veto, which Congress would surely lack the votes to override. But the showdown was forcing Republicans to cast uncomfortable votes pitting their support for a president wildly popular with the party's voters against fears that his expansive use of emergency powers would invite future Democratic presidents to do likewise for their own pet policies.

So, yes, this isn't going to make an immediate difference - but it forces Senators to choose where they stand on this issue.

And some background:

Though presidents have declared 58 emergencies under the law, this is the first aimed at acquiring money for an item Congress has explicitly refused to finance, according to Elizabeth Goitein, co-director for national security at New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice. This is also the first time Congress has cast votes on whether to annul an emergency declaration, she said.

[Rajvik]

And even if it passes the senate, it is not Veto proof.

[Labster]

The anti-Wall resolution is probably going to fail due to a veto. While Dems would like it to pass, the real point of it is to force Republican members to take a stand on an issue that 63% of independent voters oppose. And then we get to run ads like "Senator McConnell voted for Trump's plan to seize millions of acres of land from ordinary Americans with eminent domain. And then he wrested billions in funding from the military to build a boondoggle on the border. $Guy is a Democrat who believes in property rights, and in fully funding the military to keep us safe."

Admittedly, the 2016 party realignment is weirder than I thought it would be. I never thought liberals would end up with the law-and-order and military-industrial complex portfolios.

Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

I was looking up "arrogance" for the other thread and found this. It certainly applied more in the Belle Epoque than it does now, but sometime it's useful to take a step back and ask if your basic values are wrong. I have too many family members who were in the military to believe her words wholeheartedly, but it does make me think.

[hazard]

Rajvik, if it gets vetoed the Republicans still lose. A precedent will have been created that a President now holds the power of the purse, if to a limited extent, and may use that power to address anything he deems an emergency. It gets even worse for the Republicans if they successfully manage to defeat the various lawsuits to dismiss the emergency on legal grounds, because now there's also the precedent that anything a president deems an emergency is an emergency.

With the next mass shooting under a Democrat, especially at a school, expect your gun rights to take major hits nation wide as the federal government, in answer to the clear and present emergency that costs so many lives every year. With the next major environmental hazard incident like with Flint expect massive and sweeping changes in environmental regulations, tightening standards. With the next major recession or banking crash expect major financial reform pushed through under an emergency declaration. If there's any indication of election meddling by any source expect major election law reform under a Democratic president, not least of which because the Democrats have historically had major advantages in sheer share of the population.

[Rajvik]

Hazard, you are misunderstanding the way the law is written and thus the legal precedent it doesn't set. The National Emergencies Act does not allow them to bypass congress to make new laws, neither does 10USC284 which is the US Code statute that is being used with it to bypass congress on this. They allow the re-appropriation of funds from one national level project to another, (NEA), and the use of the military to build it (10USC284). What it doesn't allow is the creation of legislation whole cloth from nothing. Congress would still have to pass those laws as bills to do anything of the sort for gun control, climate change, or any of the lefts pet projects