Former GOP Lawmakers Push Republicans To Block Trump’s Emergency Declaration

Nearly two dozen former Republican members of Congress have penned an open letter to GOP lawmakers, urging them to reject President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the letter, the former members wrote that the president’s move undermines the constitutional authority given to Congress to make federal appropriations, and argue that the emergency declaration would set a precedent for future presidents that could one day come back to bite them.

“There is no way around this difficulty: what powers are ceded to a president whose policies you support may also be used by presidents whose policies you abhor,” the former lawmakers wrote.

They called on Republicans in Congress to “exercise restraint to protect the constitutional model … and to keep it from being sacrificed on the altar of expediency” and ask them to “pass a joint resolution terminating the emergency declared by the President.”