trump could declare a national emergency over his fantasy of voter fraud ...then what?

[spanone]

If he wins this 'emergency' battle, all bets are off...imho

[dalton99a]

1. Exactly.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Congress can override it...nt

[spanone]

3. 'can' and 'would' are 2 different things

[Wounded Bear]

4. They only need a simple majority...

House is in the bag, and I suspect there are 4-5 Rep Sens that will go along.

[dalton99a]

7. A two-thirds majority, because he can veto the disapproval resolution

and he will

[Wounded Bear]

10. No veto on that statute...nt

[dalton99a]

11. See:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/us/politics/trump-congress-national-emergency.html
Trump Will Declare a National Emergency. What Happens Next?
Congress has tools to override the president’s declaration, but opponents most likely do not have the votes to overcome a veto.
By Nicholas Fandos
Feb. 14, 2019

To keep a president’s party from bottling such a measure up, the law says that if one chamber passes such a resolution, the other one must bring it up for a vote within 18 days. Though Democrats are in the minority in the Senate, they would need only a handful of Republicans to join them to pass the resolution there and send it to Mr. Trump’s desk. It is easy to imagine a half-dozen or more Republican senators joining Democrats out of concern for the precedent that Mr. Trump’s declaration will set.

As with any other bill that comes to the president’s desk, Mr. Trump can veto a joint congressional resolution terminating the national emergency, as long as it has not passed with supermajorities in both the House and the Senate.

Congress did not originally intend to give the president this recourse when it enacted the law during the post-Watergate reform era that has governed how and when presidents may invoke emergency-power statutes.

But the Supreme Court struck down what it calls legislative vetoes in 1983, ruling that for a congressional act to take legal effect, it must be presented to the president for signature or veto. Because it takes two-thirds of both chambers to override a veto, the ruling made it substantially harder for Congress to stop a president’s declaration.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Well, OK, but they just passed the spending bill...

with veto proof majorities. I think they would override the ED, too.

[spanone]

8. I have zero faith that four or five republicans would go along with the democrats.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

9. Trump would still have to sign it

Congress can only rescind a declared National Emergency via a joint resolution which requires the President's signature. He can veto it and then Congress will have to override, which is doubtful with the GOP controlling the Senate.

[honest.abe]

5. Yep.. this sets a very dangerous precedent.

Trump will could go hard core dictator if allowed.

[spanone]

6. Yes he could.

[Wounded Bear]

13. He's working on it...

[onenote]

14. Then nothing.

In addition to declaring a national emergency, the president has to cite to a specific statutory authority that links back to that power that is relevant to the declared emergency. That's how he's going to be able to redirect military construction funds for the wall -- there is a specific provision in the DOD appropriations allowing that. I don't know of any such provision that relates to voting.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/98-505.pdf

[EleanorR]

15. But there is no emergency, and that doesn't seem to matter

[onenote]

16. There are currently over 30 active declared "emergencies"

The oldest dates back to the Carter administration, six were declared by Clinton, 10 by Bush, 11 by Obama, 3 by Trump (each of these presidents declared additional national emergencies that they later allowed to expire).

Congress has given the president broad discretion in deciding what constitutes an emergency.

I think its great that the optics of Trump going golfing right after declaring a national emergency are so bad. But the reality is that President Obama, for example, came into office with over a dozen declared emergencies in place and declared another dozen himself and I doubt those ongoing or newly declared emergencies impacted his daily schedule one bit. Why? Because the law doesn't require an emergency to be the sort of urgent crisis that people would generally consider an emergency.

[EleanorR]

17. I've read the list of emergencies, and they are quite different than what trump is trying to do

1. Blocking Iranian Government Property (Nov. 14, 1979)
2. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Nov. 14, 1994)
3. Prohibiting Transactions with Terrorists Who Threaten to Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process (January 23, 1995)
4. Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to the Development of Iranian Petroleum Resources (March 15, 1995)
5. Blocking Assets and Prohibiting Transactions with Significant Narcotics Traffickers (October 21, 1995)
6. Regulations of the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels with Respect to Cuba (March 1, 1996)
7. Blocking Sudanese Government Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Sudan (November 3, 1997)
8. Blocking Property of Persons Who Threaten International Stabilization Efforts in the Western Balkans (June 26, 2001)
9. Continuation of Export Control Regulations (August 17, 2001)
10. Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks (September 14, 2001)
11. Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with Persons who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism (September 23, 2001)
12. Blocking Property of Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Zimbabwe (March 6, 2003)
13. Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq has an Interest (May 22, 2003)
14. Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria (May 11, 2004)
15. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Belarus (June 16, 2006)
16. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (October 27, 2006)
17. Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions (August 1, 2007)
18. Continuing Certain Restrictions with Respect to North Korea and North Korean Nationals (June 26, 2008)
19. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in Somalia (April 12, 2010)
20. Blocking Property and Prohibiting Certain Transactions Related to Libya (February 25, 2011)
21. Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations (July 25, 2011)
22. Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Yemen (May 16, 2012)
23. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine (March 6, 2014)
24. Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to South Sudan (April 3, 2014)
25. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Central African Republic (May 12, 2014)
26. Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela (March 9, 2015)
27. Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities (April 1, 2015)
28. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Burundi (November 23, 2015)
29. Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption (December 20, 2017)
30. Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election (September 12, 2018)
31. Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Nicaragua (November 27, 2018)

[onenote]

18. True. But they also aren't what most folks would consider urgent national emergencies.

Which is the point I was trying to make -- most people hear the word "national emergency" and they think immediate, urgent crisis. But in reality the national emergencies act has more commonly been used to address situations that most people wouldn't think of in such a way.

[EleanorR]

19. there is no emergency at the border, urgent or otherwise

And yes, many of the other emergency orders were indeed emergencies and matters of national security.