On the recordJanuary 7, 2020
I rise today to discuss the War Powers Resolution that I filed on Friday, January 3, with Senator Durbin. I spoke yesterday at some length about the painful history of relations between Iran and the United States and the escalating tensions in the last 3 years that have brought us to the brink of war. As we stand at the brink, with military actions by Iran and the United States causing battlefield casualties on the other side, I believe that it is imperative for Congress to reassert itself and make plain that no President should have the ability to take the Nation to war on his or her own. Let me talk about the Constitution and about the value judgment underlying the allocation of war powers in the Constitution and then the resolution that is now pending, having been filed in the Senate. First, on the Constitution, the Constitution as drafted in 1787 has a series of provisions. Some are somewhat vague. In the Bill of Rights, what is an unreasonable search? Some are extremely precise. You have to be 35 years old to be President. If you look at the Constitution, you can see a variety of provisions, some more specific and some a little more open-ended. Actually, the war powers part of the Constitution--though not completely without ambiguity--is one of the clearest parts of the Constitution. In article I, the power to declare war is given to Congress, not to the President and not to the Judiciary--to Congress.…
