It was a busy week in Washington, so much so that I wasn’t able to send each of the different vote explanations that I like to write in the wake of the more major votes - and so belatedly here on a Friday afternoon I am now catching up with the week’s activities. So as not to bore you I will not send the three remaining vote explanations for the week in one post, but will divide them up over the next couple of days. The first worth exploring was the National Defense Authorization Act for 2015 and it passed by a vote of 300 to 119. In the past I have voted for similar bills, but this week I reluctantly cast my vote against it for a single reason that I think warrants this post. Washington has still not dealt with the war issue in the Middle East. Whether you are for or against the war in that part of the world, I believe that the Constitution is prescriptive in its suggestion that only Congress can declare war. The Founding Fathers were unified in their belief that the power to engage militarily in war was reserved for Congress because the cost of war in human terms was always borne by citizens across our country. They therefore believed regular citizens’ interests should therefore be represented in any deliberation on war, not by the executive, but by the representative body. In short, body bags carrying the remains of soldiers who fought and died in war flow not back to Washington, but to Congressional districts and states across this country. For this reason among our Founding Fathers, James Madison said in 1793, . . . The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature . . . the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war. A few years later, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1798 he went on to say, The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war to the Legislature. George Washington was no stranger to war and served both as head of our military forces and as President, yet said this, The Constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure. Finally while on this theme, James Wilson, both a framer and ratifier of the Constitution and the idea that only Congress could declare war said, This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large. . . . I could give dozens of other quotes and examples, but I think the point is clear. Our system of government is not built on unilateral action by any President whether they are republican or democrat. Unfortunately, this Defense Authorization bill would codify and authorize the President’s unilateral actions with regard to the war in the Middle East despite the fact that there is no declaration of war. There is no current authorization for the use of force. There is not even a provision within the War Powers Act that would allow for the President to be taking the actions he is taking. And so my question is this. If one wants to be consistent in suggesting the President should not take unilateral action….and many in the Republican Party have made the claim that if he does take unilateral action with regard to immigration we should defund his ability to do so - then how in the world do you vote yes on a bill like this and authorize $5.1 billion for him to proceed with unilateral actions with regard to war? Military spending is one of the few core functions of our federal government and so as a consequence I thought carefully about this vote, but I have heard from enough people at home to believe that we really do need to insist on a real debate on the authorization of force, the need for a declaration of war and the need to temper the President’s bias toward unilateral action. My comments on the floor speech I was able to give tied to this vote are found below: https://youtube/watch?v=-6_xrV6Hp_0
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 17:31:43 +0000
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