House Republican leaders on Tuesday quietly moved to shield their members from having to vote on whether to end President Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, tucking language into a procedural measure that effectively removed their chamber’s ability to undo the levies.
The maneuver was a tacit acknowledgment of how politically toxic the issue had become for their party, and another example of how the all-Republican Congress is ceding its power to the executive branch.
In this case, Republican leaders did so using a particularly unusual contortion: They essentially declared the rest of the year one long day, nullifying a law that allows the House and Senate to jointly put an end to a disaster declared by the president.
House Democrats had planned to force a vote on resolutions to end the tariffs on Mexico and Canada, a move allowed under the National Emergencies Act, which provides a mechanism for Congress to terminate an emergency like the one Mr. Trump declared when he imposed the tariffs on Feb. 1.
That would have forced Republicans — many of whom are opposed to tariffs as a matter of principle — to go on the record on the issue at a time when Mr. Trump’s commitment to tariffs has spooked the financial markets and spiked concerns of reigniting inflation.
But Republican leaders on Tuesday slipped language into a procedural measure that would prevent any resolution to end the tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China from receiving a vote this year. It passed on party lines as part of a resolution that cleared the way for a vote later Tuesday on a government spending bill needed to prevent a shutdown at the end of the week.
The national emergency law lays out a fast-track process for Congress to consider a resolution ending a presidential emergency, requiring committee consideration within 15 calendar days after one is introduced and a floor vote within three days after that. But the language House Republicans inserted in their measure on Tuesday declared that, “Each day for the remainder of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day” for the purposes of the emergency that Mr. Trump declared on Feb. 1.
Democrats jeered the maneuver.
“The speaker is petrified that members of this House will actually have to take a vote on lowering costs on the American people,” said Representative Greg Meeks, Democrat of New York, who introduced the privileged resolution. “If Congress can’t act to lower prices, protect retirement savings and hold the president accountable, what are we even doing here?
Democrats in the Senate could still try to force a vote to end the tariffs, putting Republicans in that chamber in a tough spot. But in order to terminate the levies, a resolution would have to pass both chambers and be signed by Mr. Trump.
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