Political Quotes

“Mr. President, when the Senate begins its debate, as it has been doing today on the War Powers Act, in considering this resolution, we are considering whether to do our duty to the Constitution. The debate over war powers is bigger than any one Senator, bigger than any one President, and bigger than any political party. The debate over war powers is a fundamental constitutional debate, and the Constitution and our Founding Fathers were clear: The power to declare war lies in the legislature. Madison put it this way: The executive is the branch most prone to war. Therefore, the Constitution, with studied care, vested the power to declare war in the legislature. Yet we have increasingly deferred and delegated the war powers back to the executive. We have abdicated our role as the body that should be deciding with the people when to go to war. While the President may have the power to repel an attack, Congress has done little to stop increasingly bold arguments that everything is in response to an imminent attack. I will never forget President Obama coming to speak to the Republican caucus a few years ago, and he said: Well, they were under imminent attack, and we were like: Who, in the Libyan war, and he said: Well, Benghazi. And it was like: For goodness' sake, we thought imminent attack was of America, not of a foreign city.…”