GOP senator disinvited to Republican event over vote against Trump’s emergency declaration

A Missouri county GOP committee disinvited Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to a dinner event next month, citing his recent vote against President Trump’s emergency declaration to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Blunt joined 11 Senate Republicans, and all Democrats, in voting to block the declaration, prompting the Christian County Republican Central Committee to rescind his invitation to the local GOP’s Lincoln/Trump Day Dinner, scheduled for April 6 in Ozark.

{mosads}“I am so disappointed in you now that I can hardly speak,” Wanda Martens, the party committee’s events chairwoman, wrote in an email to Blunt’s office obtained by The Kansas City Star. “Why could you not support my president in the emergency declaration? President Trump tried every available means to work the Senate to resolve the border issue and build the much needed wall. He is well within his presidential powers to do this.”

Blunt’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Blunt, the fourth-ranking Republican in the Senate, was the only member of GOP leadership to vote for the resolution of disapproval that would block Trump’s emergency declaration. The president vetoed the resolution Friday.

The Missouri Republican cited the separation of powers to justify his vote in a radio interview last week.

“The last power really left to Congress is the power to control appropriations, the power of the purse, which anybody’s ever looked at the constitution has heard that phrase over and over again,” he told KCMO. “And I think it’s an important phrase.”

Blunt has also warned a future Democratic president could take advantage of the precedent set by the national emergency declaration and take action on issues such as gun control or environmental regulations.