Perspectives: Emergency' edict elicits Minnesota memories.

Byline: Marshall H. Tanick

The declaration on Feb. 15 by President Donald Trump of a "National Emergency" to shift previously authorized military-related federal funds to build his long-promised wall along the southern border has supporters, skeptics, solons, and seers debating the logicality and legality of the pronouncement that seems destined to be resolved by the Supreme Court.

The edict, issued pursuant to the 43-year-old National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1601-1651, is already subject to litigation, as forecast by the president when he made his announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House in conjunction with signing the compromise federal funding measure that was some $4.3 billion short of his $5.7 billion goal. It was also devoid of funding for his much-ballyhooed (Mexico "will pay for it") border wall, a result that left him "not happy." Consequently, he explained that he will shift about $6 billion in funding previously allocated by Congress for other purposes in order to build or, as the president now characterizes it, to "finish" the barrier.

Minnesota is one of 16 states, led by California, along with several nonprofit organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union that have initiated litigation challenging the executive action focused upon the president's claimed deviance from the constitutional provision in Article I, cl. 7 that bars federal spending "except upon Appropriations made by law," which reserves those allocations to Congress.

The president also may have handed the challengers another issue that goes to the heart of their case when he rolled out his edict right after Valentine's Day.

While explaining that "I don't need to do this," the president justified the emergency edict as a means to expedite his wall wish. It was not the first time he invoked the emergency law, twice used by him in the past and something his predecessors have done on about 58 occasions over the years, with 31 others still technically in effect, on matters ranging from freezing assets of terrorists to Katrina hurricane relief to swine flu protective practices.

The president's "I don't need to" remark has drawn ire of critics and supplied ammunition to them and litigants as indicative of an absence of an "emergency." But they may be shooting blanks if (and when) the matter reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. That tribunal deemed anti-Muslim rhetoric of Trump and his administration during and after the 2016 presidential campaign of no...