CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE 20192020 REGULAR SESSION Senate Joint Resolution No. 1Introduced by Senator Hueso(Coauthor: Senator Wiener)(Coauthors: Assembly Members Eduardo Garcia, Gonzalez, and Weber)February 22, 2019 Relative to the Presidents National Emergency Declaration. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGESTSJR 1, as introduced, Hueso. Presidents National Emergency Declaration.This measure would urge the federal government to prioritize the health and safety of Californians by addressing the environmental and public health crisis at our border and would declare the Legislatures support of the California Attorney General Xavier Becerras decision to file a lawsuit challenging the Presidents National Emergency Declaration.Digest Key Fiscal Committee: NO Bill TextWHEREAS, Throughout his presidential campaign, the President of the United States promised his supporters that he would build a wall on the United States-Mexico border that would be paid for by Mexico; andWHEREAS, Mexico has stated unequivocally that it would not be paying for a wall; andWHEREAS, The United States-Mexico border stretches over 2,000 miles and the President wants to focus on less than one-third of our border by building a wall along 234 miles; andWHEREAS, About 700 miles of fencing along the border already exists as part of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, but much of that fencing has not been finished; andWHEREAS, In 2017, the President spent $5 million of taxpayer dollars to build eight border wall prototypes in Otay Mesa; and WHEREAS, A United States Customs and Border Protection report found that all eight border wall prototypes were found vulnerable to at least one breaching technique; andWHEREAS, Historically, walls have been used to delineate private property, differentiate between nations, and have not been particularly successful at keeping individuals out; andWHEREAS, The President reneged on his campaign promise and sought approval of $5.7 billion dollars from the United States Congress and the American people; andWHEREAS, Congress refused to use taxpayer dollars to fund the border wall, resulting in a refusal on the part of the President to sign an appropriations bill to fund the federal government; andWHEREAS, This refusal resulted in the longest government shutdown in the countrys history of 35 days from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019; andWHEREAS, During the shutdown, 800,000 federal workers and up to 580,000 contractors were furloughed or forced to work without pay; andWHEREAS, The loss of paychecks forced many federal workers and contractors to use food banks to feed their families and to fund-raise to pay medical bills, and many used up all or most of their savings; andWHEREAS, The federal government was reopened on January 25, 2019, but the President threatened to shut it down once more should he not get funding for his border wall; andWHEREAS, On February 15, 2019, Congress approved bipartisan legislation that included $1.375 billion authorized for border fencing in an effort to fund the federal government and avert another government shutdown; andWHEREAS, On February 15, 2019, the President did not receive the funding from Congress to build the border wall and, in an effort to circumvent this hurdle, he announced an executive action to make up to $6.7 billion in additional funding available for construction of the border wall including the declaration of a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act; andWHEREAS, This declaration will enable the President to divert counter-drug programming funds directed to the states, and military construction funds to be spent in the states, for the nonappropriated purpose of constructing a border wall; andWHEREAS, This will result in billions in appropriations for construction of new barriers and repairs or replacement of existing barriers along the border this year; andWHEREAS, Since 1976, when Congress passed the National Emergencies Act, Presidents of the United States have declared at least 59 states of emergency and dozens of those remain in effect; andWHEREAS, Most of those declarations dealt with foreign crises, not redirecting money without explicit congressional authorization; andWHEREAS, White House officials cited only two times that prior emergency declarations were used by Presidents to spend money without legislative approvalonce by President George H. W. Bush in November 1990 during the run-up to the Persian Gulf War and again by his son, President George W. Bush, in November 2001, after the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania; andWHEREAS, In both of those cases, the Presidents were responding to new eventsthe Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Al Qaedas assault on Americaand were utilizing resources for military purposes and neither action had been specifically rejected by Congress; andWHEREAS, There currently exists an environmental and public health crisis at our border relating to pollution of state waters in the Tijuana River Valley and the Calexico New River; andWHEREAS, The state of our air quality has been declining, regularly violating air quality standards, so much so that recently Calexico was named as having the highest concentration of elements found in particulate matter in the entire state; andWHEREAS, As a result of bad air quality, the Imperial Valley has one of the highest rates of emergency room visits by children with asthma; andWHEREAS, Mexican health records show at least 78 people died of asthma and 903 people died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the Mexicali area between 2010 and 2016; andWHEREAS, Officials in the State of Baja California have estimated that pollution causes about 300 premature deaths annually in Mexicali; andWHEREAS, Border wait times have increased exponentially during the last few years, taking people as much as five hours to cross into the United States, impacting our local, regional, and state economies; andWHEREAS, The State of California and the rest of the country are facing an epidemic of drug addiction, which is ravaging communities and destroying families and a 2016 United States Surgeon General report found that only 10 percent of people with a substance use disorder get specialty treatment, in large part due to inability to access or afford care; andWHEREAS, This Presidential Administration has separated thousands of children from their families at the border and many may not be reunited with their families; andWHEREAS, Thousands of Americans are dying for a lack of access to health care and many are forced into bankruptcies to afford medical attention; andWHEREAS, Climate change is an existential threat to our way of life and is impacting the world at a pace that may not be reversed if we do not transform our current system; andWHEREAS, All of these issues require a more immediate response and are a much bigger threat to the health and safety of Californians along our border with Mexico and the rest of the state; and WHEREAS, The President has stated that the wall could be built over a longer period of time and that he did not need to do this, but he would rather that the wall be built much faster; andWHEREAS, There is no objective basis for the Presidents Emergency Declaration as the governments own data proves there is no national emergency at the southern border that warrants the construction of a border wall; andWHEREAS, United States Customs and Border Protection data show that unlawful entries have reached a near 45-year low and the United States Department of Homeland Security data show that from 20002016, there was a 91-percent decline in successful illegal entries; andWHEREAS, Federal data confirms that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans; andWHEREAS, Estimates show that about two-thirds of the people joining the undocumented population in any given year do so by overstaying their visa; andWHEREAS, According to the United States Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 percent of heroin, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year were seized while trying to be smuggled in at legal ports of entry; andWHEREAS, Within our government, there exists a system of checks and balances and Congress has the explicit authority regarding appropriations; andWHEREAS, The Attorney General of California, Xavier Becerra, on behalf of California, along with 15 other states, has filed a lawsuit to challenge the Presidents National Emergency Declaration because it violates fundamental principles of separation of powers engrained in the United States Constitution, including the Presentment Clause and the Appropriations Clause; andWHEREAS, By declaring this national emergency, the President has overstepped his authority, and as the commander-in-chief, the President must follow our Constitution and respect our democratic processes; andWHEREAS, California shares over 140 miles of its southern border with Mexico and the flow of goods and people across the border are critical to Californias success as the fifth largest economy of the world; andWHEREAS, California is tasked with ensuring public safety within its border and protecting the economic interests and rights of its people, and through this declaration the state stands to lose funding to conduct drug interdiction, counter-narcotic, and other law enforcements activities; and WHEREAS, This declaration jeopardizes the health and safety of the people of California; now, therefore, be itResolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature (1) urges the federal government to prioritize the health and safety of Californians by addressing the environmental and public health crisis at our border such as in the Tijuana River Valley and Calexico New River and (2) declares its support of the Attorney General of California Xavier Becerras decision to file a lawsuit challenging the Presidents National Emergency Declaration; and be it furtherResolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, to the Governor, to the Attorney General, and to the author for appropriate distribution.
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE 20192020 REGULAR SESSION Senate Joint Resolution No. 1Introduced by Senator Hueso(Coauthor: Senator Wiener)(Coauthors: Assembly Members Eduardo Garcia, Gonzalez, and Weber)February 22, 2019 Relative to the Presidents National Emergency Declaration. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGESTSJR 1, as introduced, Hueso. Presidents National Emergency Declaration.This measure would urge the federal government to prioritize the health and safety of Californians by addressing the environmental and public health crisis at our border and would declare the Legislatures support of the California Attorney General Xavier Becerras decision to file a lawsuit challenging the Presidents National Emergency Declaration.Digest Key Fiscal Committee: NO
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE 20192020 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Joint Resolution No. 1
Introduced by Senator Hueso(Coauthor: Senator Wiener)(Coauthors: Assembly Members Eduardo Garcia, Gonzalez, and Weber)February 22, 2019
Introduced by Senator Hueso(Coauthor: Senator Wiener)(Coauthors: Assembly Members Eduardo Garcia, Gonzalez, and Weber)
February 22, 2019
Relative to the Presidents National Emergency Declaration.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
## LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SJR 1, as introduced, Hueso. Presidents National Emergency Declaration.
This measure would urge the federal government to prioritize the health and safety of Californians by addressing the environmental and public health crisis at our border and would declare the Legislatures support of the California Attorney General Xavier Becerras decision to file a lawsuit challenging the Presidents National Emergency Declaration.
This measure would urge the federal government to prioritize the health and safety of Californians by addressing the environmental and public health crisis at our border and would declare the Legislatures support of the California Attorney General Xavier Becerras decision to file a lawsuit challenging the Presidents National Emergency Declaration.
## Digest Key
## Bill Text
WHEREAS, Throughout his presidential campaign, the President of the United States promised his supporters that he would build a wall on the United States-Mexico border that would be paid for by Mexico; and
WHEREAS, Mexico has stated unequivocally that it would not be paying for a wall; and
WHEREAS, The United States-Mexico border stretches over 2,000 miles and the President wants to focus on less than one-third of our border by building a wall along 234 miles; and
WHEREAS, About 700 miles of fencing along the border already exists as part of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, but much of that fencing has not been finished; and
WHEREAS, In 2017, the President spent $5 million of taxpayer dollars to build eight border wall prototypes in Otay Mesa; and
WHEREAS, A United States Customs and Border Protection report found that all eight border wall prototypes were found vulnerable to at least one breaching technique; and
WHEREAS, Historically, walls have been used to delineate private property, differentiate between nations, and have not been particularly successful at keeping individuals out; and
WHEREAS, The President reneged on his campaign promise and sought approval of $5.7 billion dollars from the United States Congress and the American people; and
WHEREAS, Congress refused to use taxpayer dollars to fund the border wall, resulting in a refusal on the part of the President to sign an appropriations bill to fund the federal government; and
WHEREAS, This refusal resulted in the longest government shutdown in the countrys history of 35 days from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019; and
WHEREAS, During the shutdown, 800,000 federal workers and up to 580,000 contractors were furloughed or forced to work without pay; and
WHEREAS, The loss of paychecks forced many federal workers and contractors to use food banks to feed their families and to fund-raise to pay medical bills, and many used up all or most of their savings; and
WHEREAS, The federal government was reopened on January 25, 2019, but the President threatened to shut it down once more should he not get funding for his border wall; and
WHEREAS, On February 15, 2019, Congress approved bipartisan legislation that included $1.375 billion authorized for border fencing in an effort to fund the federal government and avert another government shutdown; and
WHEREAS, On February 15, 2019, the President did not receive the funding from Congress to build the border wall and, in an effort to circumvent this hurdle, he announced an executive action to make up to $6.7 billion in additional funding available for construction of the border wall including the declaration of a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act; and
WHEREAS, This declaration will enable the President to divert counter-drug programming funds directed to the states, and military construction funds to be spent in the states, for the nonappropriated purpose of constructing a border wall; and
WHEREAS, This will result in billions in appropriations for construction of new barriers and repairs or replacement of existing barriers along the border this year; and
WHEREAS, Since 1976, when Congress passed the National Emergencies Act, Presidents of the United States have declared at least 59 states of emergency and dozens of those remain in effect; and
WHEREAS, Most of those declarations dealt with foreign crises, not redirecting money without explicit congressional authorization; and
WHEREAS, White House officials cited only two times that prior emergency declarations were used by Presidents to spend money without legislative approvalonce by President George H. W. Bush in November 1990 during the run-up to the Persian Gulf War and again by his son, President George W. Bush, in November 2001, after the terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania; and
WHEREAS, In both of those cases, the Presidents were responding to new eventsthe Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Al Qaedas assault on Americaand were utilizing resources for military purposes and neither action had been specifically rejected by Congress; and
WHEREAS, There currently exists an environmental and public health crisis at our border relating to pollution of state waters in the Tijuana River Valley and the Calexico New River; and
WHEREAS, The state of our air quality has been declining, regularly violating air quality standards, so much so that recently Calexico was named as having the highest concentration of elements found in particulate matter in the entire state; and
WHEREAS, As a result of bad air quality, the Imperial Valley has one of the highest rates of emergency room visits by children with asthma; and
WHEREAS, Mexican health records show at least 78 people died of asthma and 903 people died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the Mexicali area between 2010 and 2016; and
WHEREAS, Officials in the State of Baja California have estimated that pollution causes about 300 premature deaths annually in Mexicali; and
WHEREAS, Border wait times have increased exponentially during the last few years, taking people as much as five hours to cross into the United States, impacting our local, regional, and state economies; and
WHEREAS, The State of California and the rest of the country are facing an epidemic of drug addiction, which is ravaging communities and destroying families and a 2016 United States Surgeon General report found that only 10 percent of people with a substance use disorder get specialty treatment, in large part due to inability to access or afford care; and
WHEREAS, This Presidential Administration has separated thousands of children from their families at the border and many may not be reunited with their families; and
WHEREAS, Thousands of Americans are dying for a lack of access to health care and many are forced into bankruptcies to afford medical attention; and
WHEREAS, Climate change is an existential threat to our way of life and is impacting the world at a pace that may not be reversed if we do not transform our current system; and
WHEREAS, All of these issues require a more immediate response and are a much bigger threat to the health and safety of Californians along our border with Mexico and the rest of the state; and
WHEREAS, The President has stated that the wall could be built over a longer period of time and that he did not need to do this, but he would rather that the wall be built much faster; and
WHEREAS, There is no objective basis for the Presidents Emergency Declaration as the governments own data proves there is no national emergency at the southern border that warrants the construction of a border wall; and
WHEREAS, United States Customs and Border Protection data show that unlawful entries have reached a near 45-year low and the United States Department of Homeland Security data show that from 20002016, there was a 91-percent decline in successful illegal entries; and
WHEREAS, Federal data confirms that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans; and
WHEREAS, Estimates show that about two-thirds of the people joining the undocumented population in any given year do so by overstaying their visa; and
WHEREAS, According to the United States Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 percent of heroin, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year were seized while trying to be smuggled in at legal ports of entry; and
WHEREAS, Within our government, there exists a system of checks and balances and Congress has the explicit authority regarding appropriations; and
WHEREAS, The Attorney General of California, Xavier Becerra, on behalf of California, along with 15 other states, has filed a lawsuit to challenge the Presidents National Emergency Declaration because it violates fundamental principles of separation of powers engrained in the United States Constitution, including the Presentment Clause and the Appropriations Clause; and
WHEREAS, By declaring this national emergency, the President has overstepped his authority, and as the commander-in-chief, the President must follow our Constitution and respect our democratic processes; and
WHEREAS, California shares over 140 miles of its southern border with Mexico and the flow of goods and people across the border are critical to Californias success as the fifth largest economy of the world; and
WHEREAS, California is tasked with ensuring public safety within its border and protecting the economic interests and rights of its people, and through this declaration the state stands to lose funding to conduct drug interdiction, counter-narcotic, and other law enforcements activities; and
WHEREAS, This declaration jeopardizes the health and safety of the people of California; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature (1) urges the federal government to prioritize the health and safety of Californians by addressing the environmental and public health crisis at our border such as in the Tijuana River Valley and Calexico New River and (2) declares its support of the Attorney General of California Xavier Becerras decision to file a lawsuit challenging the Presidents National Emergency Declaration; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, to the Governor, to the Attorney General, and to the author for appropriate distribution.