Author Topic: What the 2020 Candidates Say About the President's Power to Wage War Without Congressional Approval  (Read 238 times)

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Offline OfTheCross

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UNCONSTRAINED

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D)

Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.)

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.)

Rep. Tim Ryan (D–Ohio):

CONSTRAINED

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D)

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D–Hawaii)

Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D–Texas)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.)

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R–Ill.)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.)

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld (R)

Marianne Williamson (D)

The other four candidates who participated in the survey—Sen. Michael Bennet (D–Colo.), Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.), Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D), and former Rep. Bart Sestak (D–Pa.)—suggested that they take a relatively narrow view of the president's war powers. But Bennet said his view is only "slightly more narrow" than the OLC's, Bullock did not say when congressional approval is required, and Booker and Sestak both left the door open to unapproved military action in defense of "interests."

...

A bigger problem than presidents who break campaign promises to restrain themselves is a Congress that refuses to restrain them. The War Powers Resolution was enacted in 1973, but Congress did not even try using it to curtail a president's military adventures until earlier this year, when both houses approved a resolution condemning U.S. participation in Yemen's civil war. Although it was ultimately vetoed, that resolution, combined with the resolution against Donald Trump's declaration of a border wall emergency (also vetoed), provided some reason to hope that the current president is erratic enough to awaken a slumbering Congress.


reason

There's no reason why so many people should be on the side on Unconstrained Powers to wage war.

We have to try and re-calibrate the balance of power between our three branches of government.
If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security.