This Week on the Hill: Showdown Over Trump’s National Emergency Declaration Looms

Lawmakers in both chambers will resume legislative business this afternoon following a brief President’s Day district work period. On the House floor this week, Democratic leadership has teed up a pair of measures aimed at strengthening the nation’s gun background check system. The Bipartisan Background Checks Act (H.R. 8) and the Enhanced Background Checks Act (H.R. 1112) are both expected to pass the lower chamber easily later this week. Their fates, however, are uncertain in the GOP-controlled Senate and White House. For today, House lawmakers will consider seven bills under suspension of the rules, including a bill out of the Energy and Commerce Committee (H.R. 525) that directs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a public-private partnership for purposes of identifying health care waste, fraud, and abuse.

Additionally, the House is set to vote on a resolution of disapproval (H.J.Res 46) that would reject President Trump’s southern border national emergency declaration. It’s the first move in a series of potential legislative and legal maneuvers by Congressional Democrats to block President Trump from circumventing Congress to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The resolution is expected to easily pass the House early this week and could end up attracting the support of some Republican Senators — such as Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and Mitt Romney (R-UT) — who have been critical of the national emergency declaration.

In the upper chamber, Senators are set to resume consideration of a bill (S. 311) that would prohibit a health care practitioner from failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion. Following consideration of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is likely to begin clearing his queue of presidential nominees, which includes the nominations of Eric D. Miller to be a Judge for the Ninth Circuit; and Andrew Wheeler to be to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).