House this week will try to cut off funding for Libya mission

By Jonathan Allen

An intensifying battle over the president’s power to wage war without congressional consent will come to a head this week in the House with a bipartisan contingent’s efforts to amend a defense spending bill with provisions designed to end American engagement in Libya.

Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.), a member of the intelligence committee, has drafted an amendment to prohibit the use of government funds to continue the Libya mission, unless the expenditure is aimed at withdrawing from the theater. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), one of 10 lawmakers who filed suit against President Barack Obama over his failure to seek congressional approval for U.S. military action against Libya, plans to offer one that is a straightforward cutoff of funding.

It’s not just rank-and-file lawmakers who are talking about cutting off funds. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) raised the prospect of using Congress’s power over the Treasury to restrict the president’s war-making authority because, he says, the president has not done enough to explain the size, scope and necessity of the U.S. mission. Obama didn’t win many converts on Capitol Hill last week when he informed Congress that he doesn’t believe he needs lawmakers’ approval for U.S. operations because they are, in his opinion, “distinct from the kind of ‘hostilities’ contemplated by the War Powers Act.”

Boehner said that interpretation doesn’t meet the “straight-face test.”

So after nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has cost thousands of American lives and nearly $1.3 trillion, a Libya mission that is comparatively inexpensive — less than $1 billion so far — and does not require ground troops has become the battleground for questions over the extent of the president’s power and Congress’s willingness to let him use it.

It all amounts to a historic test of Congress’s constitutional role as the war-making branch of government, the viability of the Vietnam-era War Powers Act and the ongoing public appetite for American military engagement abroad. Not only is Obama clashing with critics in Congress, but the Republicans competing to take him on in the 2012 presidential election debated the matter at their New Hampshire forum last week.

Ultimately, there are two issues at play: The first is whether the U.S. should be involved in Libya, and the second is whether the president needs congressional approval to continue American operations in that theater. After three months of debate on Libya, they have become intertwined in some minds. Republicans who have historically backed a robust presidency say Obama is violating the War Powers Act. Meanwhile, Democrats who have sought to limit presidential war-making power are comfortable with Obama’s belief that the War Powers law doesn’t apply to the situation in Libya.

“Any president, if we are attacked, if our country is attacked, has even under the War Powers Act very strong powers to go after that country. But short of that, he must come to Congress,” then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in 2007.

In 1999, as the branches of government debated U.S. involvement in Kosovo, Boehner called the War Powers Act “constitutionally suspect” as part of an argument that Congress should not bind the hands of then-President Bill Clinton or his successors.

“A strong presidency is a key pillar of the American system of government — the same system of government our military men and women are prepared to give their lives to defend,” Boehner argued. “Just as good intentions alone are not enough to justify sending American troops into harm’s way, good intentions alone are not enough to justify tampering with the underpinnings of American democracy.”

Aides to Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) were in lock step Friday when asked whether their bosses would support or oppose efforts to cut off funding for Libya. “We’ll see,” they answered. Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are opposed to a funding cutoff.

In the Senate, John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) — who were candidates in the past two presidential elections — are preparing a resolution that would approve of U.S. actions in Libya in an effort to preserve the viability of the War Powers Act. McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, two of the Republican Party’s leading hawks, said on separate political talk shows Sunday that they fear the rise of an isolationist wing of the GOP.

That element was evident during the Republican presidential debate last week and has been reflected in the views of tea party favorites in the House GOP majority.

“First of all, we were not attacked. We were not threatened with attack. There was no vital national interest,” Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, head of the House Tea Party Caucus, said at the New Hampshire debate.

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers are boxed into a position in which a vote against the Libya action — or against the president’s authority to deploy forces — is a vote against Obama, and a vote in favor of continuing operations there risks alienating both anti-war Democrats and war-weary independents.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has backed the position that Obama doesn’t need congressional approval to stay the course with his Libya policy, while Reid’s top lieutenant, Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), insists that he must seek approval.

But even those who agree on the president’s basic policy in Libya are at odds over some of his obligations under the War Powers Act. Graham said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the law is unconstitutional and “not worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“The president needs to step up his game with Libya, but Congress should sort of shut up and not empower [Muammar] Qadhafi,” Graham said.

Durbin, who agrees with Graham on the importance of continuing the mission in Libya, said the president must get congressional approval.

“We are engaged in hostilities in Libya. What we should do is act on a timely basis to pass congressional authorization under the War Powers Act,” Durbin said on “Meet the Press.”

That law was designed to limit the president by allowing him to deploy American forces without congressional consent for only up to 90 days. It was intended to restrict the powers of the presidency after wars were fought in Korea and Vietnam without declarations of war from Congress. Since then, presidents generally have sought congressional approval — through so-called use of force resolutions and the like — before deploying troops for extended engagements. But many lawmakers and lawyers, particularly those who serve administrations, argue the law is unconstitutional. In practice, the War Powers Act has done little to limit the president’s power — and some believe it has expanded the executive branch’s authority to wage war.

Sunday marked the 90th day since the start of the Libya campaign, and the mission, now led by NATO, continues without congressional approval. Depending on how they are structured, the Kucinich and Heck amendments could get votes on the House floor, giving Congress a chance to end the Libya intervention. Conversely, if they fail, it would be a tacit approval — if not an authorization — of the hostilities there.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on “Fox News Sunday” that “cutting off funding in the middle of a military operation, when we have people engaged, is always a mistake.”