by Alan Nemirovski Image from Washington Post
On February 15th 2019, United States’ President Donald Trump declared a state of national emergency on the country’s border with Mexico, hoping that with this declaration, he will be able to allocate funding towards the construction of a wall along the border, after Congress repeatedly refused to provide such funds. This move comes after he refused to sign a funding bill back in December of 2018, which caused a 35-day government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history. The shutdown ended when the President signed a temporary funding bill, that was to reopen the government until February 15th. However, as the date fast approached, he continued to demand $5.7 billion USD for the border wall, and the bill he ended up signing on that date only contained $1.375 billion USD of funding for “existing technologies”. The move to declare a national emergency was made by President Trump, according to the New York Times, “in hopes of diverting $3.6 billion from military construction projects to build his promised wall”. This move is considered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “lawless” and “does violence to our Constitution and therefore our democracy”. As such, she has scheduled a vote on a resolution that would end the declaration. The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, February 26th 2019. According to various media outlets, it seems that the Democratic House is very likely to pass the resolution, and while less-likely, it might even be possible for them to get the Republican Senate on their side. However, even if the resolution passes, it would need to be signed by the President. And that is where President Trump might end up using his presidential veto power for the first time since taking office. That is, the power vested in one branch of government (or one person in this case) to cancel or postpone a decision, enactment, etc. made by another branch of government (as defined per Dictionary.com). Many legal experts say that this national emergency has been declared unconstitutional. Even 16 states have filed a lawsuit against the President. All we know right now is that is that the emergency has been declared, and that Democratic lawmakers are moving swiftly to block it. The declaration of such an emergency may set a dangerous precedent for future presidents, and allow them to declare almost anything as an emergency to further their own agenda. As for us in Canada, we will just have to wait and see what the vote on the 26th will bring, and what consequences will arise from that.
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