Senate panel rejects Sen. Rand Paul’s amendment to limit president’s war powers

Posted on September 4, 2013 by James Carroll

WASHINGTON – The Senate Foreign relations Committee on Wednesday rejected an effort by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to restrict the presidential power to wage war.
Paul sought to amend a resolution authorizing military action against Syria by specifying that “the president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
The panel voted 14-5 to table Paul’s amendment. The committee later passed the resolution authorizing military attacks on Syria on a 10-7 vote, with Paul among those voting “no.”
“I commend the president for doing his constitutional duty and bringing before the Congress and asking for the authority to go to war,” Paul, a member of the committee, said in introducing his amendment.
“I think it should be made very explicit, though, that this is his constitutional duty and that we are bound by the Constitution, bound by the ideas of the founding fathers…that the executive branch is the branc h of government most prone to war and therefore the Constitution vested the power to go to war in Congress.”
Panel Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said Paul had raised a “weighty” issue, but this was not the time to engage in a lengthy debate on the subject.
But Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., supported what Paul was proposing.
“I hope we have entered a new era in which Congress will assert its power under the Constitution when we get into situations like this,” Udall said.
Paul told his colleagues “there never seems to be a good time to debate these (issues).”
“If Congress wants to stand up now and take back power that’s been gravitating the wong way, this is precisely the time to do it,” he said.