The Senate will vote next week on a bipartisan war powers resolution to block President Trump from continuing military action against Venezuela — a vote that takes on heightened importance after U.S. forces attacked the South American nation and arrested President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday.
The resolution to block the administration from engaging in further hostilities against Venezuela is privileged, which means Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) cannot stop it from coming to the floor.
The measure is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
It needs only a simple majority to pass the Senate.
“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy and trade,” Kaine said in a statement. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.
“We’ve entered the 250th year of American democracy and cannot allow it to devolve into the tyranny that our founders fought to escape,” the senator added.
Schiff warned that Trump’s action against Maduro risks plunging the region into “chaos.”
“Acting without Congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” the California Democrat said in a statement.
He urged Congress to reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so.”
“We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars,” Schiff said.
The Senate war powers resolution has a chance of passing next week as all Democrats and Paul, a libertarian-leaning conservative, are expected to vote for it.
Three more Republicans would need to vote for it to give it the 51 votes needed to pass.
Moderate Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and populist conservative Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has long expressed misgivings about U.S.-led foreign military engagements, could potentially vote for the measure.
Thune, the Senate GOP leader, praised the arrest of Maduro as “an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States.”
“I am grateful for the brave men and women of our armed forces who carried out this necessary action,” he wrote on social platform X.
A House proposal sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) to stop Trump’s use of military force against Venezuela failed in the lower chamber last month.
The House voted 213 to 211 to defeat McGovern’s proposal, which would have directed the president to remove all U.S. forces from hostilities with or against Venezuela without congressional authorization.
The lower chamber also voted 216 to 210 against a resolution sponsored by Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities with “any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere” unless authorized by Congress.
Meeks’s resolution was aimed at stopping military strikes against Venezuelan boats suspected of smuggling drugs into the U.S.
Any war powers resolution passed by the Senate would need to be approved by the House and signed by Trump to have the force of law.
The president is expected to veto any resolution to restrict his power as commander in chief and there are not enough votes in either chamber to override such an action.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5671074-senate-war-powers-resolution-venezuela-vote/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.