The House on Wednesday passed a War Powers Resolution that would direct President Trump to end his war with Iran as the US continues to enforce a blockade on Iranian ports and trade attacks with the Iranian military despite a nominal ceasefire.
The bill passed in a vote of 215 to 208, with four Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Warren Davidson (OH), Tom Barrett (MI), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) — joining Democrats in support of the effort to end the war, which Trump launched without congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where it has a chance to pass since a similar Iran War Powers resolution advanced in the chamber last month. The resolution would not be close to getting a veto-proof majority, but passing it through both the House and Senate would send a message to the administration that could make it more politically difficult to restart the full-scale bombing campaign against Iran.
While Trump administration officials have declared the 1973 War Powers Resolution “unconstitutional,” they have also been desperately trying to circumvent the law, which was passed to rein in the Executive Branch’s disregard for the Constitution’s requirement that Congress has the sole power to declare war.
The law, which doesn’t supersede the Constitution, includes a 60-day deadline for the president to end any unauthorized military action or obtain authorization from Congress, a deadline that has been falsely reinterpreted to allow the president 60 days to wage war without congressional authorization.
The 60-day deadline for the Iran war expired on May 1, and the administration has tried to claim that the ceasefire should have paused the clock, but the blockade means the US military is still engaged in hostilities against the country. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed to Congress that the “war is over” despite continued US attacks on commercial ships, which Iran responded to on Tuesday night by targeting US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
