The Senate rejected a resolution Wednesday to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, declined to halt a war that Trump started without the consent of Congress. Democrats along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) forced a vote on the war powers resolution over the opposition of most Republicans, who control the Senate. Democrats implored a handful of Republicans to break with their party to end the conflict and reassert Congress’s control over declaring war.
“This essentially is the vote whether to go to war or not,” Paul told reporters. But Paul was the only Republican who voted to advance the resolution, which failed 47-53 on a procedural vote. One Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania) voted against it.
The vote was the latest setback in Democrats’ long-shot strategy to block Trump from ordering military strikes without authorization from Congress. They have forced votes on eight war power resolutions in the House and Senate a record for a single Congress since Trump returned to office in an attempt to block him from striking Venezuela, Iran and boats near Latin America suspected of smuggling drugs. All of them have failed. Republicans in Congress broadly support Trump’s decision to strike Iran, though a few have raised concerns about Congress’s lack of involvement.
“Yes, I wish I would have been consulted,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said in a statement. “I wish my vote would have been asked for before this. But the President did act within his legal bounds to do what he has done.”
Curtis and other Republicans argued that ordering the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the war days after it started would send the wrong message. Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana) said he wished in retrospect that Congress had done more to assert its authority before the strikes.
“We should’ve been holding hearings and asking probing questions and making the case to get a greater measure of unity around this operation on the front end,” Young told reporters ahead of the vote. “But here we are. We’re at war.”
Democrats countered that it was not too late to halt a war it did not authorize.
“We must act to stop Trump’s belligerence,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) said on the Senate floor before the vote. “The American people will be watching how senators vote. History will judge this chamber for how we act.”
Democrats have argued that Americans do not want to be ensnared in another war in the Middle East, but early polls have presented a less clear picture of how the public views the war. A CNN poll found 59 percent of Americans disapproved of the decision to strike Iran and 41 percent approved. But a Fox News poll found registered voters evenly split: 50 percent approved and 50 percent disapproved. Several other surveys including a Washington Post flash poll have found results in between the CNN and Fox polls.
Many Democrats have compared Trump’s strikes on Iran to the Iraq War, although President George W. Bush sought and received authorization from Congress before the U.S. invasion in 2003. Trump has not asked for authorization to strike Iran, and Democrats warned that failing to rein him in now could set a precedent.
“If we vest the sole power to make war in the president of the United States, the sole decision to bring a country into war with the president of the United States, there is no check on the use of that authority, there is no check on the abuse of that authority,”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) who introduced the resolution with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), Paul and Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote. The House is set to vote Thursday on a similar war powers resolution, which Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said he believes he has the votes to defeat.
“The idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief … to finish this job is a frightening prospect to me,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s dangerous, and I am certainly hopeful and I believe we do have the votes to put it down.”
The War Powers Resolution, which Congress passed in 1973 in response to the Vietnam War, allows a single lawmaker to force a vote to withdraw U.S. forces from a conflict or to block strikes when hostilities are imminent. But even if Congress passed such a resolution, it would stand little chance of forcing Trump to end the war with Iran because he could veto it. Overriding a veto would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers. No war powers resolution has ever overcome a veto.
Kaine and Paul waited for weeks to force the vote as Trump massed U.S. forces near Iran, even as the two countries continued to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program. Kaine said last week that he wanted the vote to happen before any strikes because it would increase its odds of passage.
But at least two House Democrats said they would oppose the resolution if their colleagues forced a vote on it while negotiations were ongoing, making it hard for Democrats to get the timing right. Kaine said before Wednesday’s vote that he would file more resolutions to end the conflict in Iran if the vote failed. The Senate and House votes this week are “the first effort of all Congress going on the record about this, but I can assure you it’s not going to be the last,” he told reporters.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) argued before the vote that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was unconstitutional and suggested another way that Democrats could force an end to the conflict so by refusing to vote for legislation funding it. Democrats might get such an opportunity soon if the administration asks Congress for more money to prosecute the war.
“If you want to stop this war, say we will not pay for it,” Graham said on the Senate floor. “I would not agree with you, but at least it would be constitutional.”
The 1973 law also requires the president to withdraw forces after 60 days or 90 days if the president seeks an extension unless Congress declares war or authorizes the use of military force. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said he does not believe the Trump administration needed to seek authorization to continue the Iran campaign even if it lasts for longer than 90 days.
“I think the president has the authority that he needs to conduct the activities, the operations that are currently underway there,” - Thune told reporters.
But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said he believed Trump would need to seek authorization from Congress if he wanted to deploy ground troops in Iran, which the administration has not ruled out.
“Most American presidents have said, ‘Listen, if I’m going to commit ground troops into combat, that constitutes war in the constitutional sense and would require some sort of authorization,’” Hawley told reporters. “I think that’s a pretty tried-and-tested line.”
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