For the third time, the U.S. House voted Tuesday to block President Trump from taking further military action against Iran, with seven Republicans breaking with the president. The vote ended in a 220 to 204 tally, marking a symbolic rebuke of the president over the largely unpopular war.
Rep. Nancy Mace, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and Zach Nunn
Tuesday’s resolution drew more GOP support than the previous two efforts to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers in June and July. Three new Republicans voted yes — Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, plus Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn of Iowa — in addition to the four who supported the prior resolutions: Reps. Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Iowa congressman Zach Nunn, a Republican, explained his vote saying that with the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization.
I will not support another open-ended war,
Nunn said.
Seth Moulton and H.Con. Res.93
The resolution, introduced by Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, directs the president to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran.
The measure allows forces to remain when needed to defend the United States or an ally or partner from an imminent attack. Senate approval would be required before Congress could invoke the withdrawal mechanism in the War Powers Resolution. H.Con. Res.93 is a concurrent resolution, meaning it must pass both chambers but would not be presented to the president for a signature or veto. Even approval by both chambers would leave a major legal question over whether Congress can force a president to withdraw U.S. forces through that mechanism. The Congressional Research Service has said the constitutional validity of that section of the War Powers Resolution is doubtful following the Supreme Court’s 1983 decision in INS v. Chadha. The ruling found that congressional actions carrying the force of law generally must clear both chambers and be presented to the president. The Supreme Court did not specifically decide the validity of the War Powers provision.
Brian Mast and the House Foreign Affairs Committee
Republican Representative Brian Mast of Florida, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, questioned which military resources Democrats would want to remove from the region where he said Iran remains a threat. Mast said Trump is against forever wars, and that is what he is ending
– the decades of hostilities from Iran. They are a continuous ongoing threat to the United States,
Mast said. Enough is enough.
It’s unclear whether the Senate plans to take up the measure in its last two scheduled weeks of session before the November elections. A war powers resolution that cleared the House in July has yet to see any movement in the Senate. Both chambers adopted another resolution in June, though the White House has argued against its validity.
Operation Epic Fury
August 28 marked six months since the war began, and the Trump administration has yet to lay out an exit strategy as it seeks tens of billions in additional funding for the conflict that Mr. Trump initially predicted would last four to five weeks. The Pentagon has said Operation Epic Fury — the military’s term for the initial strikes against Iran — ended in May, but the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire for months, and a ceasefire intended to bring the war to an end fell apart in July. Oil shipments from the region are still constrained, keeping global energy prices high.
Mr. Trump has defended his strategy in Iran, arguing the conflict has degraded the country’s military and predicting last week the war will end immediately after the election.
The action is likely to be the last House vote on the Iran war ahead of the midterm elections, where the conflict overseas is playing a substantial role in the political campaigns. The war that Trump launched on February 28 has dragged on, with on-again, off-again deadly missile strikes being exchanged and causing havoc in the region for nearly seven months. Lawmakers are heading home at the end of the week to campaign nearly full-time, with fewer than 50 days to go before the elections that will determine control of Congress as Democrats try to wrest power from Republicans.