Political Quotes

“I rise today to invoke the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act requires that upon request from a Member of the Senate or a Member of Congress, that there will be a vote on whether or not troops should be put into harm's way or into a conflict without the approval of this body. Our Founding Fathers felt very clearly on this that we should not go to war without a vote of the legislature. They wanted to make sure that the Executive or the President was prohibited from going to war without the authority of the legislature. We have drifted away from that. There really hasn't been a valid declaration of war since World War II. We have, at times, taken votes to authorize a use of military force. They call them an AUMF. We did when we went into the Iraq war. So we did the voting properly. It was still a disastrous mistake to go there. But we never have voted on being in Syria. We never have voted on having troops in the middle of the Syrian civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions of people have been displaced. We owe it to the soldiers who are in Syria--the U.S. soldiers, the young men and women in Syria--to have a debate and have a vote. Now, the Senate doesn't want to do this. They are only doing this under duress because I am forcing them to vote on this issue. I have the power because it is called a privilege vote. They can't deny me this vote or this debate. This will put the Senate on record: Are you for having troops in Syria?…”