Former GOP lawmakers warn Trump's emergency declaration will backfire for Republicans

An open letter from 23 former GOP lawmakers published Monday urges Republicans currently in Congress to block President Trump's national emergency, which he declared earlier this month to obtain funding for border wall construction.

With signatories including former Defense Secretary and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), the letter "offer[s] two arguments against allowing a president — any president, regardless of party — to circumvent congressional authority." One is the Constitution's investiture of lawmaking power, including the power of the purse, in Congress, not the presidency. To permit the president to usurp that authority, the letter says, is to undermine "true representative government."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.