GOP senators struggle to escape no-win border vote

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Opinion

March 4, 2019 - 9:57 AM

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) wants Trump to withdraw his declaration and repurpose existing money to build the wall rather than invoking the emergency orders to take more dollars.

WASHINGTON (AP) — One by one, the Republican senators floated their ideas. They were trying to find a way out of a seemingly impossible dilemma: how to support President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall without approving the national emergency declaration he invoked to build it.

And one by one, during a private lunchtime meeting that ran hot at times, they found no easy answers.

As a deadline for voting looms, it’s increasingly clear that Republican senators are deeply uncomfortable with Trump’s use of executive power to build the wall and desperate to devise a way around the vote.

Senators know whatever they decide will make history. It’s the first time Congress is voting to terminate a national emergency. Even if Trump vetoes the measure, as expected, it will set precedent for other money grabs by future occupants of the White House.

This is why they tried to talk Trump out of invoking national emergency powers and why they’re now in a no-win situation as they prepare to vote.

“People are caught between the need for border security — and agreeing with what the president’s trying to do — but not how he’s trying to do it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the senior-most Republican senator.

In the days ahead, senators will be required to vote on a resolution, already approved by Democrats in the House, to terminate Trump’s executive action.

Senate Republicans don’t have the votes to stop what Trump is doing, nor do they necessarily want to. Many of their constituents want the wall, and senators, especially those up for re-election in 2020, don’t want to run afoul of the president whose supporters they’ll need.

But they’re trying at least to provide some distance between Trump’s effort to build the wall and what many see as executive overreach that could echo for years to come.

Trump, in a speech Saturday to conservatives, said: “A lot of people talk about precedent, precedent, that if we do this the Democrats will use national emergency powers for something we don’t want. They are going to do that anyway folks. The best way to stop that is to make sure I win the election.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, presented colleagues during the lunchtime meeting with a proposal to revisit the 1976 National Emergencies Act, clawing back some of the authority Congress ceded decades ago that paved the way for Trump’s action.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., has been working on a plan suggesting Trump could do away with his declaration completely by simply repurposing existing money to build the wall rather than invoking the emergency orders to take more dollars.

Other senators are swapping other ideas.

“This has been a little bit of a wake-up call,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the GOP leadership.

Cornyn said most lawmakers were simply not aware that Congress over the years has been “so willing to delegate our authority” to the president. “I wouldn’t be surprised if some changes are made,” he said.

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