President Trump on Monday was at risk of losing a critical Senate vote on his national emergency declaration on the border, which could set up Trump’s first presidential veto.
Starting Tuesday, Congress will start to move a resolution disapproving of Trump’s declaration, which he issued to access $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build a steel slat fence at the southern border. The disapproval resolution is expected to pass the House Tuesday, and the administration has been hopeful it would fail in the Republican-led Senate.
But at least three Senate Republicans are now expected to vote for the resolution along with Democrats, who only need four Republicans to pass it in the upper chamber.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced he’ll oppose Trump’s national emergency declaration, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Susan Collins of Maine have also suggested they’ll vote with Democrats to revoke it.
“As a U.S. senator, I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress,” Tillis wrote in an op-ed announcing his position. “As a conservative, I cannot endorse a precedent that I know future left-wing presidents will exploit to advance radical policies that will erode economic and individual freedoms.”
“These are the reasons I would vote in favor of the resolution disapproving of the president’s national-emergency declaration, if and when it comes before the Senate,” he added.
Rubio has been less clear about his position than Collins and Murkowski, but indicated he could end up voting with Democrats when it comes up.
“I don’t think you solve one problem by creating another one, which is taking money out of military construction,” Rubio said Monday of Trump’s emergency declaration. “And there are separation of power issues as well. I don’t like it, and my vote will reflect that.”
There’s still time for positions to change. After the House approves the resolution, the Senate could take up to 15 days before holding its own vote.
And the Trump administration isn’t sitting still. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Monday that Vice President Mike Pence and a Justice Department official will meet privately with Senate Republicans Tuesday to try to convince GOP lawmakers to back the emergency declaration and vote against revoking it.
But many already think Pence is facing an uphill battle trying to convince Republicans to vote against it.
“There is a sense that it has a high likelihood of passing,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Monday as she walked back to her office after a round of late votes.
Trump declared an emergency after congressional negotiations failed to give him the $5.7 billion he was looking for to build a border wall. Democrats ultimately agreed to include $1.375 billion to build physical barriers along 55 miles in the Rio Grande Valley.
Trump agreed to sign the spending bill but soon after said he would declare a national emergency and shift other federal funding under his executive authority to provide a total of $8 billion in border wall funding.
House Democrats quickly announced their opposition and unveiled a resolution Friday authored by Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, to revoke the national emergency, which would block Trump from moving the $3.6 billion in military construction funding.
While Congress might be able to pass the resolution, it’s not clear the votes are there to override a Trump veto. If that happens, Congress would need two-thirds majority support in both chambers to override the veto. In the House, that would require the support of 50 GOP lawmakers to block the president, which is unlikely.
[Read more: 16 states sue over Trump border national emergency]
Democrats argue there is no national emergency at the border. Most Republicans disagree and believe the surge of illegal immigrants at the border is a crisis, but some are siding with the Democrats’ argument that Trump’s effort to move military construction funding steps on the congressional power of the purse and the separation of powers clause in the Constitution.
“We would be delinquent in our duties if we did not resist, if we did not fight back to overturn the president’s declaration,” Pelosi said Monday. “To not do that would be to abandon our own responsibilities.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is among the backers of Trump’s emergency declaration and says the president is authorized to use it, just as other presidents have used it in the past.
“If Congress doesn’t want him to have the power, Congress needs to take it back,” Kennedy said.
Blunt said Senate Republicans will be watching the House vote carefully to see how many GOP lawmakers vote for it. So far Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan is the sole GOP co-sponsor.
“I don’t think it will be a large number,” Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told the Washington Examiner when asked how many GOP lawmakers might back the resolution. “Most of our members recognize it’s a crisis at the border.”
