A health care national emergency would be nice, but I don’t think the funding is there to do it.
A climate change national emergency would be nice also. But again who knows what it would entail.
What about a democracy emergency? In between gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter purges, American politicians getting money and help from overseas sources, etc. could an emergency to defend democracy be declared? Abolish gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter purges and investigate the role of money in politics (domestic and foreign) as well as which politicians are getting assistance from overseas, especially from America’s adversaries?
What about a gun control emergency? What could that entail?
AFAIK, all the National Emergencies Act does is allow the President to redirect already-appropriated money to pay for something else instead. It’s not an all-encompassing tool with which any law can be changed by decree, so there’s no way to use it to abolish gerrymandering. It’s useful for small-bore stuff like building a few miles of Potemkin wall, but to do anything big, you still need an actual appropriation.
I have yet to see a plausible argument for being able to do anything on this front. AFAICT Pelosi was just fear-mongering and spouting bullshit when she included it in her list.
I can, AFAIK there are already laws in the books, like the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the problem has been that a lot of it depends on voluntary reporting from states.
So, I could see a new administration declaring an emergency and just by funding things like the NICS better and helping states (or making states that are in practice sabotaging many rules already in place to comply) make better reporting and funding constant checks to see if proper enforcing is going on with this and many other rules already in the books. I do think that there would be more justification to use money from Defense to… Well, the defense of America proper.
I’m trying to understand what you’re saying here, and the closest I can get is that you think that a future Dem president could declare a national emergency and … shut down all the gun manufacturers and FFL’s? Have I understood you correctly?
God, the last thing we want is someone to fear-monger and spout bullshit when it comes to national emergencies. I’m glad you addressed this most important instance of the phenomenon.
Please try not to drop your monocle. Regardless of what a hypothetical Democrat president could actually accomplish, if the Trump example is allowed to stand, then any future president will have a means to re-allocate funding despite the wishes of congress to pursue goals of limited value to the nation overall. If you’re okay with Trump doing it, please have to courtesy to not feign shock at the idea of a future president doing something similar but for a reason you might not like.
The emergency power related to defense we’ve been discussing elsewhere deals specifically with construction:
I’m not aware of an emergency power to “make states … comply” with NICS reporting. Do you know of something more specifically geared towards what you propose?
Presidents had that power prior to President Trump. For example, DACA. There’s no shock here, just, it seems, a lot of ignorance about the limits of the powers granted via declarations of national emergencies.
The section with the passage HurricaneDitka bolded:
The section that should also have been bolded:
Are there army bases on the southern border of the U.S. that are being attacked by refugees and must have their defenses upgraded? By all means, wall their brains out.
No, but I do okay at sticking to the thread topic. We have a different thread about whether President Trump’s national emergency on the border “will hold” or not. This thread is about what hypothetical actions a future Dem president might undertake via a national emergency.
I think the point is that a President could declare an emergency about anything, and start on it before Congress could stop it. NPR mentioned Friday about some of the emergency actions, one of which is to close bank accounts and take the money.
I can’t find a link. Does anyone have a link to the emergency powers?
The NPR article said that this act was created to cut down on use of the emergency powers by allowing Congress to vote on them and by making the emergency proclaimed by the President to expire in one year unless renewed by the President.
I would like to see Congress deal with this, lest a future President attempt some weirdness like confiscating my bank account.