For those readers who loathe Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), they should probably bury their heads in the sand for the next few months, because, with her sweet smile and mastery of American politics, she’s about to rain hellfire down on the Republican Party in the wake of this morning’s declaration of a National Emergency by President Trump. I’ll let Gary Sargent explain:
Republicans have good reason to be deeply nervous. Here’s why: According to one of the country’s leading experts on national emergencies, it appears that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can trigger a process that could require the GOP-controlled Senate to hold a vote on such a declaration by Trump — which would put Senate Republicans in a horrible political position.
Trump reiterated his threat to declare a national emergency in an interview with CBS News that aired over the weekend. “I don’t take anything off the table,” Trump said, adding in a typically mangled construction that he still retains the “alternative” of “national emergency.”
But Pelosi has recourse against such a declaration — and if she exercises it, Senate Republicans may have to vote on where they stand on it. …
But Pelosi has a much more immediate way to challenge Trump’s declaration. Under the National Emergencies Act, or NEA, both chambers of Congress can pass a resolution terminating any presidentially declared national emergency.
Elizabeth Goitein, who has researched this topic extensively for the Brennan Center for Justice, tells me that if Pelosi exercises this option, it will ultimately require the Senate to vote on it in some form as well. The NEA stipulates that if one chamber (Pelosi’s House) passes such a resolution, which it easily could do, the other (McConnell’s Senate) must act on it within a very short time period — forcing GOP senators to choose whether to support it.
Alternatively, Goitein notes, the Senate could vote not to consider that resolution or change its rules to avoid such a vote. But in those scenarios, the Senate would, in effect, be voting to greenlightTrump’s emergency declaration.
And then there’s the little problem of the future, as the Speaker herself notes:
“I know the Republicans have some unease about it, no matter what they say,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. “Because if the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people.”
Even many Republicans don’t want to see a national emergency declaration, according to polls – although a majority are OK with it.
So it’s time to start popping the popcorn and buying the milk duds. President Trump keeps tapping in the wedges in his efforts to divide the Republican Party satisfy his base, and each of these taps is driving more moderate Republicans away, and disaffecting more and more independents. Although, to be fair, the latest Gallup Poll is disconcerting.
But that is the past. Here comes the future.
