A pair of respected Republican ex-Congressman from Texas torched today's crop of servile GOP lawmakers (including Ted Cruz) Monday in a new Houston Chronicle OP-ED.
"Americans may have different views on President Trump’s wall proposal, but all of us should be able to agree that an emergency declaration is a constitutionally inappropriate means to secure funding," the lawmakers wrote. "In order to fulfill their oath of office, members of Congress should vote to terminate the emergency declaration," Steve Bartlett, a Republican who represented Texas’s 3rd Congressional District between 1983-1991 and Alan Steelman, a Republican who represented Texas’s 5th district between 1973 and 1977, wrote.
The pair went on to note that "the power of the purse rests with Congress because it maintains the most direct connection between those being governed and those governing."
But the old guard Republicans saved their ire for Trump himself in the new piece, saying that "the president should not be able to circumvent Congress’s considered decision not to provide requested funding simply by invoking an emergency....that is not how our Constitution vests power."
The conservatives ended their OP-ED, entitled 'To our fellow Republicans: Terminate Trump’s emergency declaration," with a friendly reminder of the oath all Republicans took before assuming office....an oath to the Constitution, and not Trump.
"Our oath is to put the country and its Constitution above everything, including party politics or loyalty to a president," they said.
"Any person who has served or currently serves in the Congress sought the office out of great love for our country and a passionate belief in the majesty of our constitution," they wrote, ending with: "We sought to serve to advance freedom and prosperity — and above all to defend our constitutional order...now those in office are being called on to do exactly that, even when expediency may counsel shunting high principle aside -- honoring that awesome oath of office means voting to terminate the emergency declared by the president."
Read the entire OP-ED here.
