Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I thank my good friend for yielding. Congress has long been absent without leave from its constitutional responsibility…”

“I thank my good friend for yielding. Congress has long been absent without leave from its constitutional responsibility to authorize war before it occurs. From Vietnam to Iran, the verdict on the War Powers Act is clear: you lose it if you do not use it. Congress chafes at outsized Presidential power, but has failed to exercise its own advice and consent power on war. Iran has stepped back for now from the brink of war, following the killing of General Soleimani, but a strong bipartisan 69 percent of the American people say that war with Iran is now more likely. No wonder, considering we just deployed 15,000 more troops to the region. Trying to get answers after the fact, as Congress did in yesterday's briefing, yielded frustration, not answers. Unchecked executive power unbalances the safeguards against arbitrary power the Framers built into our Constitution. With passage of today's resolution, we will reclaim that balance by reinserting Congress into decisions to go to war.”