[American Thinker] Last month, House speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that President Trump had to re-open the government before Democrats would engage in any negotiations over border security. Subsequently, President Trump announced a three-week temporary end to the partial government shutdown that did not include funding for a border wall. In doing so, he put country over politics and put the onus on the Democrats to negotiate in good faith. Despite the president's good-faith effort to reach across the political aisle, congressional Democrats failed miserably, acted in bad faith, and seriously undermined their credibility.
When President Trump re-opened the government, Democrats had the opportunity to work in a bi-partisan manner so as to adequately fund (or at least negotiate) the president's border wall and border security. Rather than doing so, "Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Monday to prevent President Trump from using military and disaster relief funds to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall should he declare a national emergency," according to The Hill.
In other words, not only did congressional Democrats fail to negotiate funding for the border (and border security), as Pelosi indicated, but they also blatantly (albeit poorly) attempted to circumvent the president's power under the National Emergency Act. For example, Section 2808 "permits the Secretary of Defense to undertake military construction projects, and to authorize the Secretaries of the military departments to undertake military construction projects[.] ... [S]uch projects may be taken only within the total amount of funds that have been appropriated for military construction." Moreover, in an L.A. Times article, Elizabeth Goitein, a scholar at the Brennan Center at NYU, stated: |