February 17, 2019

Democrat Adam Schiff Just Laid Out Why Trump’s National Emergency Is Unconstitutional

“If we surrender the power of the purse…there will be little check and no balance left.”

House Intelligence Committee members Rep. Terry Sewell (D-AL), Rep. Adam Schiff (D_CA) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) join House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for a news conference July 17, 2018.Chip Somodevilla/Getty

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President Donald Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency in an attempt to gin up funding for his wall on the United States’ Southern border with Mexico is plainly unconstitutional, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told CNN on Sunday morning.

“This is the first time a president has declared an emergency when Congress has explicitly rejected funding for a particular project that the president is advocating,” Schiff said. Trump declared a national emergency over border wall funding on February 14 after failing to come to an agreement with Congress and threatening to shut down the federal government (again). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell eventually came around to supporting the idea of declaring a national emergency after initially expressing concerns about the precedent it might set for presidential power moving forward.

Unlike McConnell, Democrats are holding firm to their belief that Trump is crossing a delicate constitutional line in bypassing Congress and diverting millions of dollars in federal money to a deeply partisan project. “If we surrender the power of the purse, which is our most important power, there will be little check and no balance left,” Schiff said Sunday.

The next step in this saga will be a challenge in the courts, which is already underway. The American Civil Liberties Union announced that it will sue Trump over the move. “By the president’s very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency,” ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall ‘faster.’”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also signaled that democrats will file their own legal challenge over the move. “It’s not an emergency, what’s happening at the border,” Pelosi said. “It’s a humanitarian challenge to us.”

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

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