When you get elected five times to Congress and you earn more than 800,000 votes along the way, you probably know how to take a complicated issue and explain it clearly. So it is no surprise that Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler can effectively articulate her opposition to President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency.
Herrera Beutler visited The Columbian’s Editorial Board the other day. Congress had a few days off, and her staff was kind enough to reach out and get the congresswoman on our schedule. It is important for citizens to remain in touch with their elected representatives, especially those who do most of their work about 3,000 miles away. And (shameless plug time), a local newspaper is the best way to stay informed about the people you hire and pay to represent you.
So, while we talked about several pressing topics, it was Herrera Beutler’s thoughts about the president’s proposed border wall and his subsequent “national emergency” that were the most interesting.
“I want to make it abundantly clear,” Herrera Beutler said. “I have voted for and will continue to support funding for a physical barrier. That’s not radical in my mind, knowing who’s coming and going.” Fair enough. Herrera Beutler is a Republican, and a Republican was elected president by minus-3 million votes while promising to build a wall. Of course, he promised that Mexico would pay for it, but we’ll skip that part for now.
Yet while Herrera Beutler supports construction of a wall, she has spoken out against Trump’s declaration of an emergency in an effort to hijack federal money and put it toward a barrier between the United States and Mexico. And that requires more nuance than can be found in a sound bite or a 280-character tweet.
“President Obama declared 13 national emergencies,” Herrera Beutler said. “And each time, he used money that Congress had appropriated for that purpose. Which is how this works. Under the Constitution, the legislative branch appropriates taxes and appropriates that money; that’s our role, constitutionally. We put money into a FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) pot, for example. In order for that money to be used locally, the president has to declare an emergency and it can be used by the governors. That’s the process that has been agreed upon in statute.”
Expecting Trump to understand the U.S. Constitution is like expecting me to throw down a 360-degree dunk. It’s not going to happen. That is why it is essential for Congress — particularly Republicans in the Senate — to grow a spine and point out that the would-be emperor has no clothes.
“The unique thing about this declaration — it’s not to say I believe or don’t believe there’s a crisis — is that he is declaring an emergency and then going to take money out of a pot that was appropriated by Congress, by the legislative branch, signed into law, from one area and use it for the wall,” Herrera Beutler explained. “That is a constitutional breach. It’s not speaking to the validity of the need for the wall; it’s that the Constitution is the only thing that separates us or protects us as a country.”
The fact that this needs to be explained in simple terms speaks to the public’s woeful understanding of the U.S. Constitution. And the fact that polls show 30 percent to 40 percent of the public approves of the “national emergency” declaration is a horrifying example of how Trump has chipped away at the foundation of this country.
For Trump supporters, his willingness to undermine tradition is a feature, not a bug. But this isn’t about draining the swamp; it is about ignoring the Constitution and establishing a dictatorship. Those are my words, not those of Herrera Beutler, who says she didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 (she wrote in Paul Ryan) but might vote for him in 2020. But we agree on the egregiousness of the latest action.
“The constitutional protection and the separation of powers to me are bigger than any one single issue,” she said. “That is very core to me.” As it should be to all Americans.
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