The US Senate on Thursday advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump from taking further military actions against Venezuela, after he ordered a weekend raid to capture that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice.
The measure passed with 52 senators in favor and 47 opposed. All Democrats voted for the resolution , as did Republicans Rand Paul, Todd Young, Lisa Murkowski, Josh Hawley and Susan Collins.
Should the Senate approve the measure, it will need to pass the House and be signed by Trump.
The war powers resolution, introduced by the Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, requires Trump to seek permission before attacking or otherwise using the military against Venezuela. Following the Saturday raid that saw US special forces assault the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and spirit Maduro to New York City to face trial on charges related to “narco-terrorism”, the president said he did not tell lawmakers beforehand because “Congress has a tendency to leak”.
And why would Trump sign this?
Well, presumably he wouldn’t. But a Trump veto can actually be overridden by Congress. Additionally, a law passing both houses of Congress but being vetoed by the president sends a message to the people as well.
By the way, this is how it’s all supposed to work in a functioning democracy. But USA doesn’t have that so rules are out the window.
Congress could override but they would need a 2/3rds majority and good fuckin luck with that
They passed the Epstein bill almost unanimously, which surprised me to be honest. You never know.
Republicans probably had insider info that the files would be censored to the point of being useless
If they can only muster 52 senators for the first pass there is no chance in hell it will gain more votes to override a veto.
Hey, 17 Republicans in the House just broke with the party line to vote to extend ACA subsidies. So again, there’s always hope!
Not really.
There have been 112 veto overrides in all of US history. They are pretty rare and only happen on bills that have broad support. Getting enough votes for a simple majority is orders of magnitude easier than a super-majority.
Parliament: We have done our part and further processing doesn’t concern us.