A judge has ruled against House Democrats in a federal lawsuit, which attempted to block President Donald Trump’s ability to fund his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“While the Constitution bestows upon members of the House many powers, it does not grant them standing to hale the executive branch into court claiming a dilution of Congress’ legislative authority,” U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden wrote in a 24-page decision regarding the Democrats’ lawsuit to block the transfer of funds appropriated for other means to Trump’s wall. “The court therefore lacks jurisdiction to hear the House’s claims and will deny its motion.”
McFadden also had harsh words for the House Democrats, whom he accused of trying “to conscript the judiciary in a political turf war.”
Earlier in the decision, the judge wrote, “This is a case about whether one chamber of Congress has the ‘constitutional means’ to conscript the judiciary in a political turf war with the president over the implementation of legislation. The U.S. House of Representatives seeks to enjoin the secretaries and departments of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security and the Interior (collectively, the ‘administration’) from spending certain funds to build a wall along our southern border. The House argues that this expenditure would violate the appropriations clause of the Constitution and usurp Congress’ authority. This harm, the House suggests, constitutes an ‘institutional injury’ supporting Article III standing.”
If successful, the House Democrats could have potentially stopped the Trump administration from using $1 billion transferred from military pension and pay accounts, as well as money for emergency military construction, which has not yet been transferred, to stop hinder the president’s ability to construct his wall. McFadden’s ruling has effectively killed the House’s lawsuit, and thereby their attempts to thwart the border wall construction, although House Democrats are reportedly pursuing other options.
Although this decision contradicts a ruling last month from a California federal judge that temporarily blocked part of Trump’s plan to use funding for his border wall by declaring a national emergency, there are border communities and environmental groups who among the plaintiffs in that case.
The attempts to use litigation to stop Trump’s border wall have not been limited to the question of how the project is funded. In February, El Paso County in Texas and the Border Network for Human Rights filed a federal lawsuit against Trump over his decision to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall.
“The issuance of the proclamation imposed concrete and immediate harms on plaintiffs El Paso County and the Border Network for Human Rights,” El Paso County and the Border Network for Human Rights stated in their complaint. “El Paso County is a flourishing border community that has already been harmed by the president’s declaration of an emergency and faces additional imminent harm from the actions authorized by the proclamation. The BNHR likewise has sustained concrete harms to itself as an organization and to its members, hundreds of families and thousands of individuals living along the border, where the president has declared an emergency, ordered the area’s militarization, and authorized construction.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy