War Powers Resolutions Keep Failing. Democrats Are Going to Try Again Anyway.

The Senate’s failed bid to curb President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military action in Venezuela showed how difficult it has become for Congress to assert its constitutional role on war powers. But despite the apparent futility of the effort, Democrats are preparing a new round of resolutions aimed at other countries.

“There remains an ongoing Article 1 crisis,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser now at the International Crisis Group, referring to the section of the Constitution that lays out the government’s checks and balances. “A whole majority of members of Congress, by and large, are not willing to discharge their constitutional responsibilities.”

Despite this, Democrats say more war powers resolutions are on the way.

“We’re definitely going to file one with respect to Iran,” Sen. Tim Kaine, who led the Venezuela measure, said Thursday, adding that similar resolutions are planned for Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Nigeria. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Jeanne Shaheen have already introduced one on Greenland.

But after this week, there is little reason to believe they will succeed where Venezuela failed.

“There’s no indication there are enough votes to support that.” Chris Edelson, a war powers expert at American University, told NOTUS.

Despite the resolutions’ likely failure, proponents say they can result in concessions from the Trump administration.

“We also feel like the prospect of these votes causes the administration to take some important steps that they otherwise wouldn’t take,” Kaine added.

“This is about sending a political signal, as opposed to actually enacting a law,” Finucane said. “Can you send a bipartisan signal? How many Republican senators you get on measure.”

The Venezuelan war powers effort did, in fact, achieve a minimal change in the administration’s behavior regarding the country. Under mounting pressure, officials made several public assurances to secure key Republican defectors, pledging not to put boots on the ground and seek congressional approval if that changes. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also agreed to appear before Congress for a long-requested public hearing.

While it initially gained some momentum with five Republicans helping to advance it, GOP senators ultimately killed the Venezuela resolution with a procedural vote Wednesday night. Two of them, Josh Hawley and Todd Young, flipped their votes, and Vice President JD Vance broke the tie, stopping the measure before it reached the floor.

It was a clear win for Trump, who had worked hard to quell the Republican rebellion.

Young said Thursday that he knew the resolution was doomed either way. “That was as much as I could have gotten out of the situation,” he said.

Still, the failure to even force debate on the floor reinforced how difficult it has become for Congress to assert itself on the issue of war powers, even after bipartisan interest and an escalating U.S. presence in Venezuela ramped up public pressure for congressional action.

Finucane said war powers need “structural reform” to be effective, such as “closing supposed loopholes in the 1973 War Powers Resolution, shortening the timelines for any unauthorized military operation and imposing mandatory funding cutoffs.”

The collapse of the Venezuela effort showed just how ineffective the War Powers Resolution has become under Trump, Edelson added.

“Kaput, it’s over. I mean, the Madisonian system is dead. The constitutional systems failed,” he said, arguing that despite the ineffectiveness of the War Powers Resolution, Congress still has tools it could use to confront the president if it chose to.

“There are lots of things they could do, hold hearings, make public statements, cut off funding, even impeachment,” he said. “But there’s no indication they really will.”

“This is a president who should be impeached and removed from office,” said Edelson. “These half measures are better than nothing, but we need something much more dramatic.”