A large group of states led by California filed a lawsuit in federal court yesterday to challenge Trump's decision to declare a "national emergency" and order the military to divert funds from other projects to build Trump's fantasy border wall.
The states' rationale for challenging Trump's order is relatively simple and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra made it quite clear.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of 16 U.S. states led by California sued President Donald Trump and top members of his administration on Monday to block his decision to declare a national emergency to obtain funds for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. [...]
“We’re suing President Trump to stop him from unilaterally robbing taxpayer funds lawfully set aside by Congress for the people of our states. For most of us, the office of the presidency is not a place for theater,” added Becerra, a Democrat.
The White House declined to comment on the filing.
The group of states challenging Trump's order in court includes Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Virginia, Michigan, and California.
These states represent a significant portion of the nation's population and contribute the bulk of taxpayers funds received by the Treasury and appropriated by Congress. These states elect representatives whose duty is to decide how their tax dollars and used and Trump is fundamentally challenging that relationship by redirecting money appropriated by Congress to his own personal vanity project.
This lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There's a relatively good chance that Trump's order will be temporarily blocked by the lower district court and eventually the court of appeals, but the Supreme Court is another matter.
I believe the best case scenario for blocking Trump's order to build a wall is to delay it long enough for a Democratic president to take office and rescind the order.
Even if Trump's order isn't blocked in court, a Democratic president could cancel the project which could take as long as 10 years to finish building by some estimates.