Conservatives Ask Trump to Use Obscure Constitutional Power to Fund DHS

In the latest pressure campaign on Republican leadership, a group of Washington conservatives is asking President Donald Trump to use his constitutional authority to force Congress into session indefinitely until it fully funds the Department of Homeland Security.

On Saturday, shortly after an attempt on Trump’s life at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Jeff Clark, vice president of the Oversight Project, called on the president to force the Senate into session “until they fund ALL of DHS — without exception!”

Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president, is under DHS’s purview.

The department has been shut down without Congressional appropriations since Feb. 14, as Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without policy concessions.

Article II of the Constitution grants the president the authority to convene a session of Congress “on extraordinary Occasions.”

No president has invoked this power since 1948, when then-President Harry Truman, a Democrat, called both houses of Congress back into session after they had already adjourned for the year.

The Senate has passed an appropriations bill to fund all of the department except for immigration enforcement. 

Last week, the chamber agreed to a framework for a party-line budget bill which would inject funding into Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection.

The Senate’s piecemeal approach toward funding the agency has been with cold reception among some House conservatives, who have yet to advance the upper chamber’s plan.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, supported Clark’s call for action. “I am tired of the half-assed garbage on DHS,” he wrote in a post on X.

“I agree with and support this plan,” wrote Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “President Trump should follow this recommendation.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., disagreed with Clark in a social media post on Sunday, but recommended a more drastic measure—eliminating the Senate’s sixty-vote threshold for ending debate on bills.

“Don’t need a special session, just need 7 Senate Democrats to vote for the DHS funding bill that the House has already passed,” wrote Johnson. “If Democrats refuse, Republicans should nuke the filibuster to pass it on our own.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., concurred with Johnson.

“Once again, someone tried to kill President Trump, and this time the perpetrator could have killed the Vice President and most of the cabinet. I agree with Senator Johnson. We need DHS and secret service funded immediately. No more delays, no more excuses,” Scott wrote on X in reply.