Tillis to Join Democrats to Vote Against Trump Emergency Declaration

WASHINGTON, D.C. – If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck – it’s a duck. The latest quack from Sen. Thom Tillis (RINO-NC) leaves little doubt. The senator announced Monday that he would be joining Democrats in the high chamber to vote to block President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration on the border.

An op-ed from @SenThomTillis:

I support President Trump’s vision on border security. But I would vote against the emergency.https://t.co/FEsDfFvV85 pic.twitter.com/dRoFR6kwdD

— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) February 26, 2019

“[…] The president is rightfully frustrated with Congress’s inaction regarding the humanitarian and security crisis at the nation’s southern border. Even though Republicans and Democrats spent the past several decades in the halls of Congress and on the campaign trail promising the American people that they would work to secure U.S. borders, some of my colleagues seemingly made a politically calculated decision to block the president’s good-faith efforts to finally get it done. 

[…]

As a U.S. senator, I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress. As a conservative, I cannot endorse a precedent that I know future left-wing presidents will exploit to advance radical policies that will erode economic and individual freedoms.

These are the reasons I would vote in favor of the resolution disapproving of the president’s national-emergency declaration, if and when it comes before the Senate.”

There is really only one line one need to read in this op-ed, and that’s Tillis’ claim, “As a conservative […].”

The reclaiming of the conservative label means one thing, and one thing only, for Tillis – it’s campaign season. Tillis is nearing his first re-election big to U.S. Senate, and the woefully unpopular senator has dusted off his pocket constitution to claim the conservative mantel on the campaign trail.

He starts by deriding his politically calculating colleagues that block the president’s efforts to fulfill his duty as commander-in-chief in charge of the nation’s security, and immediately proceeds to explain why he is doing the just that, and for the same politically calculating reasons.

To be clear, the emergency declaration itself is no misstep, or abuse, or expansion of power. The emergency powers are there, delegated by Congress, but they just don’t like this emergency. Changing the definition of ’emergency’ would be a more honest constitutional approach to this issue, but Tillis would rather join with Democrats to make a big splash. The left wing media loves when they can get a “Republican” like Tillis to swing against his own party, and especially against Trump, and he sure loves the attention.

Congress, at large, has made it perfectly evident that they do not view the border crisis and illegal immigration to be an emergency. After all, over the last decade they have done next to nothing to mitigate the deteriorating conditions there.

Tillis himself as actively worked to provide amnesty to illegal aliens, belittled those that want a wall, condescend the ‘Far Right,’ and here he is with, “As a conservative…” Give us a break.

It’s worth repeating that the allusion to future Leftist presidents abusing such declarations to advance their policy agenda, is a misleading equivocation. It suggests using delegated executive emergency authority to enforce the law on the border and protect the national sovereignty is on par with a President Warren abolishing fossil fuels.  Not to mention, those would be actions that could also be stopped by a congressional clarification of the laws, just as the Democrats are attempting to do here.