Howard Berman: “I would like to respond to my friend's arguments. I agree with every word he said except that this is a manifestation of…”

“I would like to respond to my friend's arguments. I agree with every word he said except that this is a manifestation of the Congress exercising its authority. This is an abdication of Congress exercising its authority, because nowhere in this resolution is the authorization for the operations that we want to authorize, that we should be authorizing if we think they are appropriate. The gentleman from Ohio doesn't think they are appropriate. Some of us do think it is appropriate, and this isn't about buying time. We are not a supplicant to go to the executive branch and ask for them to request of us authorization. We have the institutional power to decide what to do, and this resolution fails to take that option. I think the gentleman makes a wonderful case for why this resolution is not sufficient to step up to our responsibilities under the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution. With that, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).”