Relating to A National Emergency Declared By the President on February 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Madam President, for the recognition. It is great to be joined on the floor by Senator Collins, who is going to speak after me to stand up for the Constitution, and I very much appreciate Senator Lamar Alexander's comments also. He is a real student of the Constitution, and I respect very much the conclusion he has come up with here today.

When each Senator is sworn into office, we take a fundamental pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That vow that we support the Constitution dates back to the very first Congress in 1789. Defending the Constitution is our first and foremost sacred duty.

The Founders built a system of checks and balances into our Constitution. They made sure that the three branches of government exercised their own separate powers, and they made sure that no one branch, no one person, could exercise too much power, especially over the use of taxpayer money. The Founders gave to Congress the power of the purse, one of our most fundamental powers. Article I, section 9 of the Constitution could not be more clear: ``No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.''

Congress holds the power to spend taxpayer money, not the President. It is our job to make sure that spending decisions have widespread public support and are not the product of an extreme minority, much less one man or one woman.

We all know that the President wants a wall. We just had a major debate about border security funding. The President shut down the government for 35 days because Congress refused his wall request.

Eventually he relented, but now he has declared an ``emergency'' to simply try and take the money that he couldn't get from the appropriations process. He said: ``I didn't need to do this.'' He flaunted the fact that this is not a real emergency.

The President is testing the limits of Executive power. The questions before the Senate today are these: Are we going to let this happen or are we going to open Pandora's box? What about article I of the Constitution? What about the 35-day government shutdown? What about Presidential budget requests? What about the Appropriations Committee? Are we really going to let a President raid taxpayer money after Congress denies the request?

The opposition to this power grab is bipartisan, as it should be. Among the American people the numbers are overwhelming. Almost 70 percent of the American people oppose the President's emergency declaration to raid taxpayer money for the wall. That is almost 70 percent.

My fellow Senators, it is time for the Senate to do its job. It is time for us to assert our authority over the purse. It is time for us to honor our oath of office. Every Senator should vote yes on the resolution to terminate the President's emergency declaration.

I want to thank my cosponsors in this effort. Earlier I mentioned Senator Collins, who is on the floor with me and will speak after me-- Senator Murkowski, Senator Shaheen. Again, I know that Senator Collins is on the floor to urge us to do the right thing, to stand up for Congress's authority.

This vote is historic. The Constitution's principle of separation of powers is at stake. If the Senate enables the President to hijack our power to appropriate, history will not remember us fondly.

This vote is not about the wisdom of building a wall along the border. This vote is not about party. This vote is about whether we will let any President trample on the Constitution, whether we will sit by and let the President take away our constitutional authority to appropriate.

I rise today, hopeful that my Republican colleagues will speak up. In addition to Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski, Senator Tillis stated firmly in a recent opinion piece:

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Mr. UDALL. Madam President, to get this wall money, the President caused the longest government shutdown in our Nation. The shutdown caused hardship for millions of Federal employees and lasting pain for thousands of Federal contractors, not to mention the millions of Americans who were denied services for 35 days--services they paid for with their tax dollars.

I visited with New Mexicans hurt by the shutdown and it was very, very painful to hear their stories.

In the end, Congress decided on a bipartisan basis not to spend the $5.7 billion the President demanded for his wall. He got $1.3 billion. I didn't want to see that much, and I wanted to see more restrictions as to specifically what it was going to be spent for, but it was a hard-fought compromise, and a deal is a deal.

Congress's determination should have ended the debate for this fiscal year, the year that we are in.

Now the President is asking Congress for $8.6 billion for the border wall next year. That is his prerogative, but make no mistake, it is not only Congress's prerogative, it is Congress's constitutional responsibility to decide if he gets that money. As the old saying goes, the President proposes and Congress disposes. President Trump is being treated no differently than all previous Presidents. That is how our constitutional system works--or at least how it is supposed to work.

The President's emergency declaration is an end run around Congress, plain and simple. If any Democratic President issued an emergency declaration like this, say for climate change or gun safety funding, Republicans in this body would scream bloody murder and vote to disapprove.

I am on record that climate change is one of the most pressing issues on our planet, and I am on record that gun violence is a national crisis. I have voted for and proposed actual legislation on these topics, as our system is supposed to work. No previous President has used the National Emergency Act to bypass the appropriations process like this. Our Constitution, the rule of law, separation of powers--all of these rise far above the day-to-day controversies like the President's border wall.

On a practical note, the President wants to take real money away from real military construction projects, which will have a real impact on national security. These military construction projects have been vetted through years of scrutiny, through the military, through numerous congressional committees in Congress, and they are projects deemed essential to national security--projects all across the Nation, in our States, that are now at risk.

We have a long list of military construction projects by the President. Yet he has not bothered to tell us which projects would be cut to build his wall. Will he raid $793 million to rebuild Camp Lejeune, NC, after the devastation from Hurricane Florence?

Will he steal up to $800 million for Navy ship maintenance to make sure that accidents like what happened to the USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald never happen again?

Will he raid $125 million from my State of New Mexico for Holloman Air Force Base to develop unmanned aerial vehicles to track terrorists and for White Sands Missile Range to build a badly needed information systems facility?

The answer is that we don't know, but these critical projects in all of our States are at risk.

We each need to think about our States and the people we were sent here to represent. I am from one of the four States that border Mexico, one of the four States that would be the most directly impacted by any border wall, and I am here to state there is no national security emergency along my State's border with Mexico. What is happening at our border does not justify the use of this authority.

New Mexico's border communities are flourishing with economic, cultural, and educational activity. Border communities are as safe as or safer than others in the interior.

This is not a partisan view along the border. Republican William Hurd represents more than 500 miles of the Texas border with Mexico. He not only believes the President's emergency declaration is unconstitutional, but he also thinks the President's wall is ``the most expensive and least effective way to do border security.''

Again, whether you support or oppose the border wall is not an issue. What is at issue is our oath to support and defend the Constitution, whether any President can toss Congress aside and raid critical funds at will.

We have an opportunity to stand up to an unconstitutional power grab. I urge everyone in this Chamber to seize that opportunity.

With this, I yield to Senator Collins, who, from the beginning, has worked with me as we have our resolution in, and we are working hard to make sure that we stand up for the Constitution.

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