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\n

Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump\u2019s Day One blitz of executive actions, Democrats on Capitol Hill mobilized Tuesday to fight his move to freeze a broad range of federal cash.<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> (D-N.Y.) and other top House Democrats held a private call on Tuesday with more than 100 people, including leaders of outside groups, to discuss government funding strategy and how to stop Trump from violating so-called impoundment law by usurping Congress\u2019 \u201cpower of the purse,\u201d according to three people familiar with the call. <\/p>\n

People on the call included advocates for a federal program granting food assistance to pregnant women and babies and the Head Start early education program. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Democratic leadership\u2019s first steps in coordinating a united front against what they see as the Trump administration\u2019s violation of impoundment law, which is meant to block presidents from withholding money Congress has previously passed through the Congressional appropriations process.<\/p>\n

Congressional Democrats are still trying to figure out exactly what funding Trump intends to freeze after the president\u2019s barrage of executive orders Monday night that would cut off funding Congress previously appropriated. Those orders call broadly for federal agencies to pause foreign assistance to Ukraine and other countries, as well as halt money already contracted under Democrats\u2019 signature climate and spending law known as the Inflation Reduction Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whether Trump\u2019s executive orders hold up in court will be a major test of any president’s power to unilaterally withhold funding Congress has cleared \u2014 specifically whether such an action undermines lawmakers’ “Article I” authority under the Constitution to control the government purse strings.<\/p>\n

Once it is clear what accounts Trump is targeting through these executive orders, Democrats can determine who is being \u201charmed\u201d and has legal standing to challenge the president\u2019s orders in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a whole array of political countermeasures that one could undertake in terms of having standing to sue, to vindicate the will of Congress,\u201d Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse<\/a> (D-R.I.), the former chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a brief interview on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Besides a state or an organization representing people affected, a committee chair or party leader could potentially be \u201csuitably implicated\u201d to challenge Trump\u2019s orders in court, said Whitehouse, who is also a former attorney general of Rhode Island and is also tracking the impoundment issue.<\/p>\n

Democrats are planning other strategies to counter Trump\u2019s orders to freeze funding, too, from a messaging standpoint, including by highlighting the ways Americans are hurt by the president\u2019s moves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President spent his first day in office stealing from American taxpayers,\u201d the House\u2019s top Democratic appropriator, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro<\/a>, said in a statement Tuesday night. \u201cIn the coming weeks, I will be focused on sharing with the American people the direct consequences of undercutting these investments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats also plan to push for a federal probe into the legality of Trump\u2019s moves to freeze funding. During Trump\u2019s first presidency, the Government Accountability Office concluded<\/a> on multiple occasions that the administration violated the law by withholding Ukraine aid and other funding.<\/p>\n

Russ Vought, who was in charge of freezing that funding during Trump\u2019s first presidency in his capacity as the White House budget director, is now seeking confirmation to a second stint leading the Office of Management and Budget.<\/p>\n

Vought already told senators during his first confirmation hearing last week before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that Trump believes it is unconstitutional for the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to require the executive branch to spend money as Congress prescribes. <\/p>\n

As Vought prepares to testify on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee in his second confirmation hearing necessary to secure the OMB job, Democratic senators are ready to question the nominee specifically about the legality of Trump\u2019s new executive orders. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump\u2019s Day One blitz of executive actions, Democrats on Capitol Hill mobilized Tuesday to fight his move to freeze a broad range of federal cash. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and other top House Democrats held a private call on Tuesday with more than 100 people, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}