Casten Statement on Vote to Terminate Trump’s Emergency Declaration
Washington, D.C. – Today U.S. Representative Sean Casten (IL-06) voted in favor of H.J.Res 46, legislation to terminate President Trump's emergency declaration.
Casten said, "In declaring a national emergency to divert funds from Congressionally approved military projects to build his wall, the President has grabbed authorities that the Constitution vests not in the Executive Branch but in the Legislative Branch. It is the people's directly elected representatives who hold the purse strings. The Founding Fathers explicitly placed that power in the people's branch to ensure that the people had check on the President.
Our Founding Fathers had the experience of the monarchy and rejected it. Any Member of Congress who does not see that this President is acting like a King is either not paying attention or is blinded by their own political ambition.
Any Member who does not stand up against this outrageous overreach by this President of limitless gall, is putting our Nation and the American people on a very slippery slope toward tyrannical rule.
The threat to the future of our country if we fail to block this blatant power grab is beyond question. I am just a Freshman in this body, but I can see the danger with clarity. It is beyond my understanding why so many with seniority in Congress – so many who could be expected to be the most effective and jealous guardians of this Institution -- would stand down, step aside, and allow any President to take away our most sacred Constitutional weapon: our power, though the purse, to enforce the will of the people.
For weeks, the Congress debated providing the President's full demand of funds to build a wall and in the end, in plain language, rejected that demand. There can be no argument here of murky Congressional intent.
It is bad enough that the President would willfully circumvent the Congress. It is worse, however, that in the waning hours of Congressional action, the Senate Majority Leader took to the Floor to signal to his Senate colleagues that the coast was clear for them to vote to pass a law because he had, in essence, given the President permission to ignore it and substitute his own will. Get that, the most powerful Member of the U.S. Senate told the President not just to ignore the intent of Congress, but also take for himself the law-making authority that the Constitution places in the Legislative Branch. The Supreme Court has spoken before on this matter and found that the Congress does not have the authority to hand over to the Executive the power of the purse.
It comes as no surprise to me that this President would leap at the opportunity. But I find it jaw-droppingly stunning – and truly scary – that Members of Congress would simply shrug their shoulders and chalk this up to one more out-of-the-norm thing that this President would do. Our country is in real trouble and I, for one, will do everything in my power to uphold my oath. Today I voted for this resolution, introduced by my colleague Congressman Castro, and I'm glad my colleagues in the Majority did the same. The choice is simple, stand up for the Constitution or salute to a king."