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House Votes to Restrain Trump’s Iran War Powers
The debate over the resolution reignited a fierce dispute over Congress’s role in matters of war and peace, and highlighted deep disagreements over President Trump’s policy on Iran.
By Catie Edmondson and
WASHINGTON — The House voted on Thursday to force President Trump to go to Congress for authorization before taking further military action against Iran, in a sharp rebuke of his decision to ratchet up hostilities with Tehran without the explicit approval of the legislative branch.
The vote was 224 to 194, almost entirely along party lines, to curtail Mr. Trump’s war-making power. It followed a bitterly partisan debate in which Democrats insisted that the president must involve Congress in any escalation against Iran, and Republicans — following Mr. Trump’s lead — accused Democrats of coddling the enemy by questioning the commander in chief at a dangerous moment.
Democrats, joined by two Republican senators, have raised questions about Mr. Trump’s rationale and justification for ordering the drone strike last week that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, casting doubt that there was an imminent threat that warranted a deeply provocative action.
In pressing forward with the War Powers Resolution, they reignited a bitter dispute that pits presidential power against congressional prerogatives and voiced grave concern that if they did not step in to check Mr. Trump, he could careen toward war with Iran without consulting Congress.
“If our loved ones are going to be sent to fight in any protracted war, the president owes the American public a conversation,” said Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, a former C.I.A. and Pentagon analyst specializing in Shiite militias and the sponsor of the legislation. The measure, she added, “allows us to start that debate as our founders intended.”
But in a striking display of loyalty to Mr. Trump, Republicans equated support for the resolution with backing for America’s enemies. They embraced an argument that top administration officials have made privately to lawmakers in recent days, that questioning the president’s authorization to confront Iran militarily is dangerous and unpatriotic.
“Instead of supporting the president, unfortunately my Democratic colleagues are dividing Americans at a critical time, weakening our leverage overseas and emboldening our enemy, the largest sponsor of terror in the world,” said Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The criticism was similar to one Mr. Trump made earlier in the day at the White House, when he charged that in raising concerns about his actions, Democrats were effectively siding with General Suleimani.
“Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats wanted to defend him,” Mr. Trump said, although neither the speaker nor any Democrat has done so. “I think that’s a very bad thing for this country.”
His comments came not long after Ms. Pelosi had told reporters on Capitol Hill that General Suleimani was “a terrible person,” even as she insisted the war powers debate was a vital one.
“It’s not about how bad they are,” she said of the Iranians, “it’s about how good we are, protecting the people in a way that prevents war and does not have us producing, again and again, generations of veterans who are suffering because of it.”
Lawmakers were rankled by the White House’s failure to confer with Congress before the strike, and were dissatisfied with the classified notification the administration sent to Capitol Hill afterward. And they left their first briefings on the matter on Wednesday, with Mr. Trump’s national security team, irate.
Citing the president’s mercurial style and the chaotic nature of his foreign policy, Democrats accused the administration of failing to present credible information or a clear justification for the strike against General Suleimani. They lined up on the House floor to argue that the week of escalating tensions underscored Congress’s duty to reclaim its constitutional authority to declare war.
“We have seen that developments can change day by day, hour by hour,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “Should tensions escalate again, Congress should have a say before hostilities are launched. It is really that simple.”
Still, the House measure could amount to little more than a statement of principle, without the force of law.
House Democrats opted to use a concurrent resolution — the type that is considered to be enacted once both chambers approve it and is never presented to the president for his signature — rather than a joint resolution, which Mr. Trump could veto.
“This is a statement of the Congress of the United States,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters, “and I will not have that statement be diminished by whether the president will veto it or not.”
The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that to have legal effect, an action of Congress must be presented to the president for signature or veto. But Ms. Pelosi insisted on Thursday, without elaborating, that the House measure would have legal teeth.
Most Republicans, who are often reluctant to criticize the president, especially on matters of national security, have stood in lock step with Mr. Trump and his administration, rejecting suggestions that Congress must reassert its war powers in light of the recent hostilities with Iran. They contend that Mr. Trump showed restraint and was well within his authority to respond to an imminent threat.
Mr. Trump took to Twitter early Thursday morning to rally House Republicans to oppose the measure, calling on them to “vote against Crazy Nancy Pelosi’s War Powers Resolution.”
Later at the White House, Mr. Trump tried out a new rationale for having targeted General Suleimani, claiming without offering evidence that the Iranians were “looking to blow up our embassy” in Baghdad.
Only three Republicans — Representatives Matt Gaetz and Francis Rooney, both of Florida, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — along with the House’s lone independent, Representative Justin Amash, joined Democrats in supporting the measure. Eight Democrats broke ranks to oppose it.
Congress enacted the War Powers Resolution in 1973 over President Richard M. Nixon’s veto, empowering Congress to pass legislation that directs a president to terminate military action unless lawmakers have explicitly voted to authorize them. But lawmakers have never succeeded in using it to curb a military operation, in part because it appeared to be severely weakened by a Supreme Court decision a decade later that struck down a similar legislative veto mechanism in an unrelated immigration law.
Since then, it has been broadly understood that Congress must use joint resolutions to try to terminate a war, essentially meaning that it takes the votes of two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers — the amount needed to override a veto, which is politically far more difficult to achieve. Last year, for example, the Senate and the House both passed a joint resolution to force Mr. Trump to end support for Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen’s civil war. But Mr. Trump vetoed it, and an override vote in the Senate failed 53 to 45.
The Senate could move as soon as next week to take up a similar resolution on Iran sponsored by Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. That measure faces an uphill climb in the Republican-controlled Senate, but the administration briefing delivered to senators on Wednesday so enraged two Republicans, Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, that they said they would support it. That measure would mandate that Mr. Trump wind down military action against Iran within 30 days unless Congress voted to authorize it.
The support of the two libertarian-leaning senators, who have long clamored for Congress to rein in presidential war powers, means that Democrats, who control 47 votes, are within striking distance of the majority needed to pass it.
Two other Republicans, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Todd Young of Indiana, said they were considering voting for Mr. Kaine’s resolution. But his version is a joint resolution that Mr. Trump could veto.
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