Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, ISIL poses a threat of extraordinary significance to the United States. In its size, its wealth, and its barbarity, it is, in fact, a threat to all of civilization.

This week, we will be voting to fund one piece of the ongoing effort to rid the world of the cancer that is ISIL, and that is the training and equipping of the opposition in Syria. Whether to support the rebels is an important decision, but it pales in comparison to the larger question facing Congress and the Nation, and that is: Should we authorize the President to use our Armed Forces in Syria and Iraq?

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, it appears that we will not be considering that larger question before we leave town in advance of the election. This is, I believe, a mistake of constitutional dimension. The administration has acknowledged that the military campaign we are about to embark upon amounts to war and will likely last years.

If Congress' power to declare war is to mean anything, it must compel us to act under circumstances such as these. If we sit on our hands, we set a precedent for future administrations that they may wage war without Congress' approval, and the declaration clause is no more than excess verbiage in our Constitution from a bygone era.

The President has broad authority as Commander in Chief to defend the Nation, but that authority is not without limit. As one former constitutional law professor and then Senator named Barack Obama said in 2007:

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the Nation.

The administration has acknowledged that ISIL does not yet pose an imminent threat; nonetheless, it has asserted that it has the authority to act based on the 2001 authorization to use military force against al Qaeda passed in the days immediately following September 11. This reasoning is tenuous as best. That authorization addressed to a different enemy, at a different time, and at a different place does not provide the legal foundation for a war on ISIL, an organization that itself is at war with al Qaeda.

Today I have introduced a tailored and narrow authorization for the use of force in Iraq and Syria. My resolution specifies the enemy and explicitly does not authorize the large-scale deployment of ground troops to fight in either country. The resolution includes an 18-month sunset clause so that Congress can insist on its oversight role. It also immediately repeals the 2002 resolution to use force in Iraq and provides the same 18-month sunset for the 2001 authorization to use force, to harmonize the legal authority we provide to wage war against any foe and to ensure that no future President can claim to use it as a basis for unilateral action.

In matters of war, Congress is not some suitor that needs to be asked by the President to dance. Requested or not, Congress must exercise its responsibility to decide whether to send the Nation's sons and daughters to war. We should not go to war, let alone adjourn, without a vote.

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