Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., is pushing for the Senate to hold a veto override vote of his resolution to withdraw U.S. military forces from Yemen’s civil war.
“The president’s action is a very serious challenge to congressional authority that demands a response,” Sanders wrote in a letter to fellow senators Monday of President Donald Trump's veto of the measure, Defense News reported.
“For far too long Congress, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has abdicated its constitutional role with regard to the authorization of war … Congress must now act to protect that constitutional responsibility by overriding the president’s veto.”
To override President Donald Trump’s veto, Sanders — a frontrunner in a wide field of Democrats running for president in 2020 — would have to get 13 more Republicans to change their votes for the 67 supermajority needed, Defense News noted.
According to Defense News, the bipartisan joint resolution’s passage was considered a milestone for lawmakers as they invoked the War Powers Resolution for the first time since its passage in 1973.
A Sanders aide told Defense News he hopes lawmakers will want to “shake the cobwebs off” in asserting Congress’s constitutional war powers.
If it fails, Sanders and other supporters could try to attach similar legislation to must-pass defense spending or policy bills, which would test the president’s resolve when they appear for his signature. Or they could sue, Defense News reported.
“This is a bit unsettled law, and to get to the bottom of it you’d have to litigate through the Supreme Court, likely,” Win Without War director Stephen Miles, whose organization backs the resolution, told Defense News.
“Given the stakes at play in Yemen, I can’t fault the sponsors for choosing their path over fighting a years-long legal battle."
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