ROBERT NAIMAN: So there’s a key provision of the War Powers Resolution, which, remember, its purpose was for Congress to try to give itself tools to reassert its Article One powers under the Constitution. One of the tools that they put in was to say, if the president starts a war without congressional authorization – in violation of the Constitution – then a single member of Congress can call the question by introducing a Privilege Resolution and force a debate and vote on the House floor.
But the fine print is that the House rules shall be determined by the “yeas and the nays.” The trick that Paul Ryan used, was that the House has a powerful Rules Committee. In general, every bill that goes to the floor is preceded by a rule, approved by the Rules Committee, that governs how that bill should be considered. The trick that Paul Ryan used was to use the rule on a completely different bill, the “Manage Our Wolves Act” which was about delisting the gray wolf (from the Endangered Species Act).
In that rule, they inserted language saying H. Con Res. 138, sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California, the Yemen War Powers Resolution bi-partisan bill, is de-privileged. It is deprived of its guaranteed vote. That was the trick that they used, and generally it’s very hard to defeat the majority on the rule because it tends to be a party line vote. Nonetheless, we tried and actually we were only shy by seven votes. Six Democrats voted against us; 55 Democrats voted on our side. So it was actually closer than a vote on the rule would ordinarily be, but that’s how Paul Ryan got around the vote by that parliamentary trick. That’s terrible and it’s frustrating, but here’s the silver lining.
First of all, it shows that Paul Ryan was yellow to meet us in a fair fight and that indicates that he was afraid that in a clean vote, too many Republicans would vote to end the unconstitutional war.
The second silver lining is that there’s a companion resolution in the Senate. It’s the same resolution that Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee and Chris Murphy brought forward in March – Senate Joint Resolution 54. That was tabled in March in a vote of 55 to 44, but it was not killed. It was only tabled and the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that Bernie can bring that back anytime he wants. And he has pledged to do so after Thanksgiving, as early as the Tuesday, Nov. 27th, Tuesday after Thanksgiving. We could get a vote in the Senate. You know, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but it seems quite plausible that we could win that vote in the Senate. That will be a world historical. Nobody has ever won a vote like that in either House before, certainly not in the Senate. Sen. Murphy told Defense News some weeks ago that Sanders, Lee and Murphy would have won the vote in March if there hadn’t been a sneaky deal to replace that bill with a fake certification by Pompeo, that certified the Saudis are trying to reduce civilian casualties. Everybody knows that’s a lie, but Pompeo certified it anyway. So that’s the second silver lining. We have a vote coming up in the Senate and procedures in the Senate are different in the House. There’s no way that McConnell can block Bernie from going to the floor.
The third silver lining is that Rep. Khanna can reintroduce his bill anytime he wants with a new bill number – same text, same content, new bill number, and then it is once again, privileged once again guaranteed to go to floor. Of course, Paul Ryan could do dirty tricks again, but if he tries that in the context of Senate passage, it’s a very different world. Also, the context of the world has changed. There’s tremendous pressure on the U.S. government and the Saudi government now per person in the nation. The British are active, Houthis have announced that they’re for a ceasefire. Some press reports indicate that the UAE wants to end the war. The Saudi government is isolated diplomatically, particularly after the murder of the Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, so we’re in a different moment now.
We could end this war within the next two weeks and one thing that’s going to be key is what Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse will do the next go ’round. They voted against the Sanders resolution in March. If they switch sides and vote with Sanders and Murphy, your senator in Connecticut, now that could tip the balance towards Senate passage and ending the war.
