The House Democrats plan to introduce a resolution that would terminate Trump’s national emergency declaration on the southern border. They plan to introduce it Friday morning:
JUST IN: House Democrats plan to introduce a privileged resolution that could terminate President Trump’s national emergency declaration at the border on Friday morning, three Democratic sources say. - @AlexNBCNews pic.twitter.com/mpYdaFpV1d
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 20, 2019
Of course this is the right of Congress to essentially veto Trump’s national emergency, but it’s not that simple.
Here’s a brief look at the process, abbreviated from FiveThirtyEight, that would need to happen for this to be successful:
- The House would need to pass the resolution by a simple majority, which should be no problem
- The Senate would need to pass the resolution within 18 days of it passing the House.
- It would then go to the president’s desk, where he would likely veto it.
- Then it would take a super-majority of both chambers to override the veto. That’s 288 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate.
As FiveThirtyEight points out, there could easily be defections among Republicans who don’t agree with the process. The question is would there be enough defections to override the veto.
20 would have to join Democrats in the Senate and 53 in the House.
Now you may be wondering if McConnell would even let this come up for a vote in the first place. According to FiveThirtyEight, “there does not appear to be a way for him to avoid a Senate vote on this measure”. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but even if it is, they note that McConnell could refuse to allow the resolution for a vote after it gets vetoed by the president. And that’s a serious obstacle considering McConnell supports the national emergency.
FiveThirtyEight also has a chart of Senators that indicate their support for the resolution. You can go there to see which Republicans might vote with Democrats if this resolution comes up for a vote.