Senate Democrats plan to force a vote in the coming weeks to end President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southwestern border, putting pressure on Republicans to break with the president over his plans to use money designated for projects in their states to build a border wall.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, is expected to announce the measure on the floor Tuesday, days after the Pentagon unveiled a list of military construction projects whose funds will be diverted to pay for the wall under the national emergency Mr. Trump declared in February.
The move is not likely to result in an end to the emergency, which would require a veto-proof, two-thirds majority in the Republican-controlled Senate, which has demonstrated little appetite to defy Mr. Trump. But Democrats are eager to force Republicans into a politically painful choice between rejecting Mr. Trump’s wall or explicitly endorsing a move that will deprive their states of coveted federal funding.
The gambit by Democrats signals a combative opening to already fraught negotiations in the coming weeks over federal spending, in which Republicans and Democrats must resolve a variety of differences to avert a government shutdown this fall.
The vote will be particularly fraught for politically vulnerable Republicans who ultimately decided to support the president’s declaration — only to see projects in their states on the list shelved to pay for the wall. Senators Martha McSally of Arizona and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, for example, both face tough re-election campaigns. Democrats in both states blasted out statements railing against them for approving the president’s scheme.
A dozen Republicans joined every Senate Democrat in voting to end the national emergency declaration in March, after the House passed the resolution. The measure ultimately failed to get the two-thirds majority needed to override Mr. Trump’s veto.
Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which allowed Mr. Trump’s initial declaration, Congress can vote every six months to end the declaration. Under Senate rules, the measure must be eventually given a floor vote. The Washington Post first reported Mr. Schumer’s plans.
According to remarks obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Schumer plans to say that the vote will raise “a large and vital constitutional issue: does our country truly have checks and balances, particularly important when we have such an overreaching president?”
“This vote will also provide a chance for Senators to prevent the president from stealing military funding from their states to foot the bill for an expensive and ineffective wall he promised Mexico would pay for,” Mr. Schumer is expected to say in his floor remarks.
The list of specific projects, which lawmakers did not have before the first vote to end the national emergency, covers practically every aspect of military life across the globe, and includes a number of schools, as well as facilities in Puerto Rico that need repair after Hurricane Maria swept through the island in 2017.
Pentagon officials have said that the projects will still move forward but that Congress will need to replace the diverted money in the upcoming spending process — something Democrats have insisted they will not do. Without congressional allocation of the funds, the projects will in effect be canceled.