*By Carlo Versano* Two years after President Richard Nixon resigned, Congress passed and President Ford signed the National Emergencies Act of 1976 in an attempt to regulate the president's ability to declare open-ended national emergencies. The point of the law, commentators said at the time, was to give Congress the power of oversight on matters of national urgency. With a veto-proof majority, Congress could override declarations of national emergency that were executed by the president. The law was, in essence, intended to be a check on executive power. It is perhaps ironic then that President Trump announced he will, under the provisions of that law, declare a national emergency as a way to circumvent Congress' "power of the purse" ー in this case, the body's refusal to grant him the billions he requested in border wall funding. Since that law was signed by President Gerald Ford, there have been 58 declarations of national emergencies, 31 of which are still in effect, according to the Federal Register. What differentiates President Trump's emergency declaration on border security ー aside from the fact that his own administration says illegal border crossings are at [near-historic lows](https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2017-Dec/cbp-border-security-report-fy2017.pdf) ー is that it involves an issue of domestic politics rather than foreign policy. A review of the [31 national emergencies](https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-01-11/us-currently-31-other-national-emergencies-heres-what-means) currently in effect finds that nearly all of them concern issues like economic sanctions in countries like Libya and Syria, human rights abuses in places like Venezuela, or export controls. President George W. Bush declared a national emergency in the days after 9/11 that is annually renewed, but the vast majority of the others involve international and transnational crises that many Americans probably didn't even know existed at the time they were enacted ー and certainly don't concern domestic policy. The few domestic national emergencies addressed crises like the H1N1 pandemic that were not exactly political hot button issues. That puts the border emergency in a category of its own, and has led even some Republicans to grumble that the president is setting a precedent that will come back to bite the party when Democrats next control the executive branch. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi latched onto that concern on Thursday while she delivered remarks on the anniversary of the Parkland school shooting: "Why don't you declare that emergency, Mr. President? ... A Democratic president could."

Share:
More In Politics
Why Democrats Losing Hispanic Voters
Chuck Rocha, host of 'Nuestro' podcast and opinion contributor at The New York Times, joins Cheddar News to discuss why Democrats are losing Hispanic voters.
Return-to-Office Mandates Might Be Hurting the Middle Class
More businesses are requiring workers to return to the office, but there is concern that many employees in the middle class, especially women and people of color, need remote work options for reasons including childcare and financial security. Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, joined Cheddar to discuss why office mandates could be detrimental to the middle class. She noted that while companies claim a return to offices would help foster more collaboration and efficiency, reports show that they are successfully able to do their jobs from home.
California Governor Explores Texas-Like Law to Ban Assault Weapons
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled to allow the controversial Texas abortion law to remain in effect, banning abortion at six weeks and allowing any private citizen to sue a person or doctor aiding or abetting someone seeking an abortion. Outraged at this decision, California Governor Gavin Newsom is working to draft a proposal in line with the law as it relates to guns. Shawn Hubler, California correspondent at the New York Times, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
Getting Into the Vaccine Mandate Debate as Google Implements Its Own
Even as tech giant Google implements a vaccination mandate, charging its employees to declare their vaccine status within a time frame or risk dismissal, the federal government is tangled up in the court system trying to impose one of its own. Cindy Cohn, the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Harry Nelson, founder and managing partner of Nelson Hardiman LLP, joined Cheddar to debate the ethics, efficacy, and legality surrounding the issue. While Cohn noted that she thinks the federal mandate might be legally sound, her organization is also concerned with a separate question of privacy. "At EFF what we're most interested in is the digital surveillance that's going along with some of these attempts to try to track and confirm whether people are vaccinated or not," she said.
Load More