12 Republican Senators vote NO on Emergency Declaration, 3-14

Senator Mitt Romney of Utah

SEN. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee

The retiring Tennessee lawmaker said that he supports the president on border security but that the emergency declaration sets a dangerous precedent. “His declaration to take an additional $3.6 billion that Congress has appropriated for military hospitals, barracks and schools is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution that I swore an oath to support and defend,” Alexander said in a statement Thursday ahead of the vote.

SEN. Roy Blunt of Missouri

Blunt is a senior Appropriations member and the only one in Senate GOP leadership to support the termination measure. He has previously raised concern about the precedent it would set. Blunt was re-elected to a second Senate term in 2016. (He served several terms in the House before running for Senate in 2010.)

SEN. Susan Collins of Maine

Collins co-sponsored the resolution out of concern for the precedent an emergency declaration would set for the powers of executive branch. She’s known for bucking her party, splitting with leadership on efforts to repeal the 2010 health care law in 2017. That independent streak has become part of Collins’ brand in Maine, where she remains popular.

SEN. Mike Lee of Utah

The senior senator from Utah, first elected in 2010, announced his support for the resolution Wednesday. The announcement came after Trump rejected his last-ditch effort to curtail future national emergency declarations, which could have provided cover for GOP senators to support Trump’s declaration.
Lee is among the most conservative senators in the chamber who has been focused on restoring Congress’ power. 

SEN. Jerry Moran of Kansas

The two-term senator announced on Twitter shortly before Thursday’s vote that he would support the resolution. “I share President Trump’s goal of securing our borders, but expanding the powers of the presidency beyond its constitutional limits is something I cannot support,” he tweeted..

SEN. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska

Murkowski, who is not up for re-election until 2022, is among the more moderate senators and has proved that she is not afraid to break with her party and Trump. She explained her support for the resolution on the Senate floor earlier this month, saying, “Congress is a co-equal branch of government and as such Congress should stand up for itself.”

SEN. Rand Paul of Kentucky

Paul announced at a GOP Lincoln Day dinner earlier this month that he would support the resolution, noting that Congress did not appropriate the funds Trump was looking to use for the border wall. “If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing,” the two-term senator said.

SEN. Rob Portman of Ohio

The two-term senator announced in a floor speech Thursday that he would support the resolution. He had been working with Lee on legislation relating to national emergency powers, which hit a roadblock when Trump rejected the deal. Portman said the declaration would set a “dangerous precedent” and “opens the door for future presidents to implement just about any policy they want.”

SEN. Mitt Romney of Utah

Although Romney is a freshman senator, he entered the chamber with a high profile as his party’s 2012 presidential nominee and the former governor of Massachusetts. Before Trump officially made his move, Romney said that he did not believe declaring a national emergency was the right approach, and that he “would also expect the president stay within statutory and constitutional limits.” 

SEN. Marco Rubio of Florida

Like many others, Rubio warned of the precedent set by Trump’s national emergency. He said in a February statement that while he agreed there was a crisis at the southern border, “a future president may use this exact same tactic to impose the Green New Deal.” won re-election by 8 points in 2016 after an unsuccessful run for the GOP nomination for president. 

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania 

The conservative Pennsylvania Republican has occasionally broken with the president in the past, particularly on Trump’s use of tariffs. Toomey told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday that he supports Trump’s effort to build a border wall, but the declaration of a national emergency was “a very important separation of powers issue.”

SEN. Roger Wicker of Misssisippi 

The two-term senator, who’s the chairman of the Commerce Committee and the second-highest-ranked Republican on the Armed Services panel, had “serious reservations” about what an emergency declaration would do to the separation of powers. “The precedent we set this year might empower a future liberal President to declare emergencies to enact gun control or to address ‘climate emergencies,’ or even to tear down the wall we are building today,” he said in a statement earlier this week.