Responding to pressure within his own party to hold a vote on a new Islamic State (ISIL) specific Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Speaker of the House John Boehner mocked the idea that Congress should be curtailing the president’s war powers in the already-raging fight.
“The president was asking for less authorization than he has today to fight ISIS and those of their ilk,” Boehner said during a press briefing with reporters on Thursday, explaining why, despite numerous hearings on the matter, a new war authorization hasn’t been brought to the floor of the House for a debate or a vote.
Boehner was referring to the broad 2001 AUMF, which the administration is currently using to justify ongoing strikes against ISIL.
“If our goal is to destroy and defeat [ISIL],” Boehner added, “I don’t know why’d we want to give him less authorization than he has today.”
The Speaker’s concerns about limiting the president options in the fight against ISIL are largely unfounded since the administration, while pushing for a new authorization, has chosen not to seek a repeal of the post-9/11 AUMF.
Boehner’s casual dismissal of the idea that Congress should be more active in checking the executive’s war powers, however, might not sit well among his rank-and-file.
Earlier this week, House Deputy Majority Whip Rep. Tom Cole (R-Ok.) joined Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in asking the Speaker to take up a new AUMF, and said, in a joint letter, that each day without an advancement of the legislation undermines Congress’ “authority and role in matters of war and peace.”
“If we refuse to debate a resolution on the weightiest question any nation faces – whether to take military action – we cede to the Executive Branch a power that the framers intentionally delegated to Congress,” the lawmakers added,
Rep. Cole appeared on CSPAN’s Washington Journal Thursday morning, and admitted that lawmakers in both parties disagree with the president’s proposed AUMF, but said, “That’s what a markups for.”
“You have a debate, you cast votes, you come out with a final product, and you put it on the floor,” Cole said.
“Congress is finding it easier and easier just to ignore that and to let the executive branch go and do what it wants,” he added, pointing to the failure of Congress to authorize the White House’s 2011 Libyan intervention that led to the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.
“We never acted, we should have in my view,” Cole said, referring to Congress not authorizing the mission. “We have a Libyan crisis now partly because we destabilized the country.”
