House fails to over-ride Trump veto of his border emergency

US President Donald Trump accompanied by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Roy Blunt, R, right, arrives for a Senate Republican policy lunch on Capitol Hill. Photo / AP

The Democratic-controlled House fell short today in its effort to over-ride US President Donald Trump's first veto, handing him a victory in his effort to spend billions more for constructing barriers along the Southwest border than Congress has approved.

Lawmakers voted 248-181 in favour of overturning his veto, mostly along party lines, but that was 38 votes shy of the number needed for the required two-thirds majority.

The outcome, not a surprise, enabled Trump to move forward on an issue that was a hallmark of his 2016 presidential campaign and of his presidency.

Yet the vote also gave Democrats a way to focus on policy differences with Trump, days after Attorney-General William Barr gave the President a political boost by saying Special Counsel Robert Mueller had concluded that Trump had not colluded with Russia to influence his election.

Congress sent Trump a resolution this month annulling the national emergency that Trump had declared at the US-Mexico border. That included passage by the Republican-led Senate, in which 12 GOP senators — nearly 1 of every 4 — voted with Democrats to block him.

Trump vetoed that measure almost immediately.

Trump had declared the border emergency under a law that lets him shift budget funds to address dire situations. His plan is to shift an additional US$3.6 billion from military construction projects to work on border barriers.

Congress voted this year to limit spending on such barriers to less than US$1.4 billion, and Democrats called his declaration a gambit for ignoring lawmakers' constitutional control over spending.

"We take an oath that we must honour" to protect the Constitution," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "The choice is simple, between partisanship and patriotism. Between honouring our sacred oath or hypocritically, inconsistently breaking this oath."

- AP