While not subject to filibuster, it’s still subject to Presidential veto.
President Trump’s attempt to divert billions of dollars of money to border security through misuse of emergency powers may finally force Congressional Republicans to show some spine.
NYT (“ G. O. P. Tries to Hold Down Defections Before Vote to Block Trump’s Emergency “):
Republican leaders scrambled to keep rank-and-file members in line ahead of a House vote on Tuesday to kill President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the Mexican border, as Democrats appealed to Republicans to protect Congress’s constitutional power to control federal spending.
The House’s vote on a declaration of disapproval will force Republicans to choose between the congressional prerogative over federal spending established in the Constitution and a president determined to go around the legislative branch to secure funds for a border wall that Congress has refused to grant.
Many Republicans were clearly uneasy with the president’s action, but few were ready to declare their support for legislation overturning it.
On Monday, Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, became the second Republican senator to say he would support the Democratic resolution.
“There is no intellectual honesty in now turning around and arguing that there’s an imaginary asterisk attached to executive overreach — that it’s acceptable for my party but not thy party,” Mr. Tillis wrote in an opinion article published Monday in The Washington Post.
Last week, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she would support a resolution, barring any extraneous additions. Other Republicans were holding their fire.
[…]
The resolution is expected to sail through the House on Democratic votes, but significant Republican defections would give it momentum in the Senate and could raise the specter — however remote — that Congress could override Mr. Trump’s promised veto, should the resolution reach his desk.
Democrats framed Tuesday’s vote as a referendum on protecting the separation of powers and Congress’s constitutional right to determine federal spending levels — an argument that appealed to several conservatives in both chambers.
[…]
But Democrats were also making a less lofty case to wavering Republicans. They circulated a list of all of the possible military construction projects in each district that could lose money shifted instead to Mr. Trump’s wall.
Several lawsuits have already been filed to challenge the merits of the declaration, but the easiest way for Congress to counter it is through the resolution of disapproval, authorized by the National Emergencies Act of 1976. Once it passes the House, the Senate is required under the law to take it up within 18 days.
