(WASHINGTON, DC) – During a pro forma session of the House Thursday morning, Democrats tried to push a resolution that aims to check the president’s authority over war powers in Iran, only to be quickly denied on the floor by the temporary speaker Chris Smith, R-N.J..
The same bill failed in the Senate twice last month and a ceasefire with Iran was brokered on Tuesday after almost 40 days of conflict, but Democrats are persistent in their effort to ensure they have a say in how the U.S. wages war.
“The Constitution is very clear that the power to declare war rests with the Congress of the United States,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va. told reporters outside the Capitol. “That’s what we tried to do this morning. The pro forma speaker ignored us, which is a tragedy, but we will keep fighting.”
Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., joined by seven other Democrats, sought to be recognized on the House floor, but Smith, who stood in as speaker pro tempore, adjourned the session before giving Ivey the chance to speak.
“We’ve been at war for 40 days, we’ve only been in session for 33, which is another part of the pattern for the speaker being away, being on vacation instead of being here and getting the people’s work done,” Ivey told reporters.
The Democrats said they were motivated by President Donald Trump’s violent rhetoric toward Iran, such as his statement that “a whole civilization will die,” posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Tuesday.
“The threat about essentially annihilating Iran as a country and as a culture, certainly we are going to fight to not only oppose that sort of thing but to make sure we get the administration under control,” Ivey told Capital News Service in an interview.
The measure representatives tried to push Thursday would invoke the War Powers Resolution Act, signed in 1973 during the Vietnam War. Like in Vietnam, operations in Iran have not been approved by Congress, prompting measures to reel in the president’s use of force abroad.
In March, Democrats failed to muster the support needed to overcome the Republican majority in the Senate. In both votes, they were joined by a sole Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, but were opposed by Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
The House is scheduled to be back in full next week, when the Democrats will need to shore up more votes if they try to pass the measure again.
Ivey was joined at the Capitol Thursday by Beyer, Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., and Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., and Madeleine Dean, D-Pa. and Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.