Texas Republicans back strong presidential war powers, as long as he’s a Republican
A pattern is expected to repeat itself Thursday: Texas’ Republican senators will vote against a measure to limit President Donald Trump’s war powers.
But when President Barack Obama was in office, Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Republicans, backed similar measures to limit the Democrat’s powers.
Fort Worth area House members have followed the same pattern. Republicans have opposed War Powers Resolutions with Trump in the White House, but supported them when Obama was. And the Democrats opposed efforts to restrict Obama, but are eager to reign in Trump.
Congress is supposed to share power with the president to start wars, but it has given up that power so much in the last 80 years, said Sanford Levinson, a professor of law and political science at the University of Texas at Austin, that now the process has just turned into “games of political chicken.”
A War Powers Resolution restricting Trump’s ability to send troops to Iran passed a Senate procedural vote Wednesday, 51 to 45, with eight Republicans joining the Democrats. A similar measure passed the Democratic-controlled House last month with a nearly party-line vote. Trump advisors have already threatened a veto.
Some version of this measure is all but certain to go to the president. When it does, the president can simply veto it, which would block the effort unless two-thirds in both chambers vote to override. Trump vetoed a similar measure last year on the war in Yemen, and his veto was sustained.
This dynamic gives the president nearly full leeway to choose when to send troops, and War Powers Resolutions are instead used by Congress as a political rebuke of the president.
The five Fort Worth area representatives who have held office during Obama’s administration — Mike Conaway, Kay Granger, Kenny Marchant, Michael Burgess and Marc Veasey — have all at least once in their career supported a measure to limit a president’s war powers when that president was in the opposing political party. Each opposed a similar measure when the president was in their same political party.
Two others have only served during the Trump administration. Rep. Ron Wright, a Republican, has opposed War Powers Resolutions to limit Trump, while Rep. Colin Allred, a Democrat, supported them.
Wright cited the gamesmanship in an interview after a vote last month to rescind a 2002 authorization for military force in Iraq.
“The way this was structured it’s another messaging bill for the Democrats. And that’s something that’s obvious,” he said. “There are a lot of us on both sides of the aisle that would like to seriously review that issue. … But when it’s used as a political football I’m going to vote no every time. I’m not going to diminish the power of the president to protect this country just so you have political talking points.”
In 2014, Cornyn supported a measure including language to stop the Obama administration from deploying soldiers in Syria. He was also critical in a 2011 letter of Obama’s use of the military in Libya without consulting Congress.
Wednesday, in the procedural vote, he voted with opponents of the War Powers Resolution that would restrict Trump in Iran. He opposed last year’s Yemen resolution.
In 2014, Cruz spoke on Fox News, supporting a War Powers Resolution against the president, and criticized Obama for not working with Congress enough to use the troops.
“The value of doing it, aside from honoring the Constitution, it forces the president to articulate a clear military objective that is tied to national security,” Cruz said at that time. “There is value in the president coming before Congress, coming before the American people, and saying, here specifically is what we intend to accomplish, here is how we intend to accomplish it.”
Cruz has said he will oppose the Iran War Powers Resolution, and opposed last year’s Yemen one, and he also introduced a resolution commending the president for the airstrike that killed Qasem Soleimani, a high ranking Iranian general.
”Games of political chicken”
The Constitution says that while the president is in charge of the troops, it’s up to Congress to declare war.
But Congress has not declared war since 1942.
“As a practical matter, the war powers act is subject to endless negotiation and game-of-chicken playing for members of Congress and the president,” Levinson said, the University of Texas professor.
Frustrated with the Vietnam War, Congress attempted to reign in presidential power by passing the War Powers Act.
In theory, the act was supposed to give some authority over the military back to Congress by requiring the president to get permission to deploy troops abroad for more than 60 days. In reality, presidents have basically been able to do whatever they want anyway by betting that members of their party in Congress won’t stand up to them.
“Presidents usually win those games because they will probably be supported by members of their own political party and that may very well be enough,” Levinson said.
There are some exceptions. Eight Republican senators joined the Democrats Wednesday to support the Iran measure, and another one for Yemen passed with some Republican support last year.
But usually, Levinson said, most members of Congress go along to get along.
“I think most senators in both parties aren’t that interested in these issues because their constituents, by and large, aren’t that interested in these issues,” he said of war powers resolutions. “It’s unusual for any member of the House or Senate to devote that much energy or take genuine political risks with regard to this.”
Even if a measure passes both the House and Senate with majorities, as this Iran one is poised to, the president can knock it down with a veto, since two-thirds is such a high bar to overrule him.
“Presidents can almost literally get away with murder,” Levinson said.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 2:26 PM.