Despite previous statements, Collins votes down measure to halt Trump border wall

Despite previous statements in opposition to President Donald Trump’s declaration of an emergency at the southern border — which he says allows him to divert military funds to build a wall — Sen. Susan Collins cast the deciding vote Thursday in the Appropriations Committee to kill a measure that would have prevented him from doing just that.

The measure was an amendment, proposed by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), to a defense spending bill that would have prevented the president from diverting money Congress had set aside for specific military projects to the border wall project.

In a statement released after the vote, Collins said that while she still strongly opposed the emergency declaration, “Senator Durbin’s amendment is also overly broad.”

The amendment is a single paragraph, which would have prohibited Department of Defense funding from being “used to construct a wall, fence, border barriers, or border security infrastructure along the southern land border of the United States.”

During the committee proceedings, Collins argued that Senators opposed to Trump’s diversion of funding could vote for a separate measure on the Senate floor terminating Trump’s national emergency declaration. That resolution, however, could be vetoed by the president and is ultimately unlikely to be effective.

Collins garnered front-page headlines earlier this week for her statements in favor of that resolution.

“Unfortunately, this is another instance of Senator Collins telling Mainers one thing and then doing another in Washington,” said Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Marra in a press release. “If Senator Collins were serious about preventing the president from raiding funds Congress had already set aside for military bases across the country, she would have voted to support this measure. Instead she was the deciding vote against it.”

Sen. Angus King has been more strident in his opposition to the diverting of funds. Yesterday during a hearing before the Armed Services Committee, he called Trump’s move “an illegal order” and “a gross violation of the Constitution.”

(Top photo: Chip Somodevilla | Getty)