[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 38 (Monday, March 4, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S1610]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Declaration of National Emergency

  Mr. President, now on the national emergency, over the weekend, Rand 
Paul, the fourth Republican in the Senate, announced his support for 
the resolution to terminate the President's national emergency, giving 
it the needed 51 votes to pass this Chamber.
  It is clear that Members of both parties know there is no actual 
emergency at the border. The President himself made clear, when 
announcing the state of emergency, that he didn't need to do this. When 
the President says ``I don't need to do this,'' he is saying that there 
is no emergency.
  By definition, an emergency is something you need to do; it is an 
emergency. In the President's own words, this is not an emergency. It 
is a political bone and a face-saving device for the President to throw 
to the rightwing, to show he is still fighting for the wall. It goes 
way beyond simply how you feel on the wall, pro or con; it goes to the 
fundamental building blocks of how this country was structured.
  Congress has the power of the purse. Congress is a check on the 
Executive. The Founding Fathers feared--probably above anything else, 
having dealt with King George in the Revolution--that an overreaching 
Executive was one of the greatest dangers to our democracy. That is why 
so many Presidents have respected and done emergencies only in the 
rarest of times.
  The last bunch of emergencies were either a war, 9/11, Desert Storm, 
diseases--real emergencies--things that affect our climate, disasters 
such as hurricanes and tornadoes, in terms of what has happened with 
our weather and our climate.
  If this coequal branch of government allows Presidents--whoever they 
may be, Democrats or Republicans--to just declare an emergency whenever 
they want to achieve a partisan policy goal, it will fundamentally 
alter the balance of power in this country in a way the Founding 
Fathers would be aghast at.
  My guess is if George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or James Madison 
were looking down on this Chamber, they would want us to rise to the 
occasion; that was the democracy they wanted. I don't know if we will.
  The Founders of this Nation gave the Congress one of the greatest 
powers any government has--the power of the purse. President Trump is 
trying to take these powers away, even after Congress rejected--
explicitly rejected several times--the money for his wall.
  We Democrats know this, and now it is clear that a growing number of 
Republicans know it, as well: To allow this emergency to persist is a 
change in the fundamental, necessary, and often exquisite balance of 
power that marks the genius of the American Constitution.
  I know many of my friends on the other side of the aisle understand 
that. In fact, if you are a true conservative and not just a Trump 
acolyte, you realize that there shouldn't be too much power centralized 
in any place because conservatism, at its root, believes in maximizing 
the freedom of the individual and minimizing anything that encroaches 
on it, including an overreaching Executive. So to look the other way 
because President Trump wants this and because he is sometimes almost 
in a temper tantrum about this issue is so shortsighted and so 
detrimental to the long-term health, stability, and viability of how 
this balance of power works.
  Let us come together on this issue--Democrats, Republicans, House and 
Senate--and rise to the occasion. If Congress stands up, it will be a 
reaffirmation of our democracy. It will be a day historians will 
proudly note decades from now. It will be a reaffirmation of the 
democracy the Founding Fathers wanted.