Weeks after the House Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment to repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Speaker Paul Ryan stripped the amendment from the FY2018 Defense Appropriations bill just before midnight on July 18th.
Introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the amendment to repeal the 2001 AUMF garnered support from Republican representatives and passed on June 29th with a nearly unanimous vote.
In response to Speaker Ryan’s decision, FCNL Lobbyist for Human Rights and Civil Liberties Yasmine Taeb released the following statement:
“FCNL denounces Speaker Paul Ryan’s decision to stifle bipartisan consensus and proper debate on this critical legislation by preventing it from moving forward. Though House leadership has substituted another, weaker amendment for Rep. Barbara Lee’s original, and now promises a hearing on this issue in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, this maneuver defies democratic principles and allows representatives to evade substantive debate.
“Congress should hold a timely, rigorous debate on war authorization. What’s more, as the vote on Rep. Lee’s amendment made clear, members of both parties clearly believe it is time to reclaim their constitutional authority to determine when and where our nation goes to war. Our nation’s reliance on a war authorization from 2001 is unacceptable, and votes against endless, unchecked war should not be dismissed, ignored, or erased.
“The removal of Rep. Lee’s amendment is a setback for opponents of endless war, as well as an affront to the democratic process and a rejection of a rare, precious instance of bipartisanship on defense issues. Speaker Ryan’s substitution of a comparatively weak amendment for Rep. Lee’s bold stance on the 2001 AUMF is frankly unacceptable.
“We support legislators of both parties who have asserted Congress’s authority to determine when and where our nation goes to war—particularly those who voted in favor of Rep. Lee’s amendment last month. Even as House leadership attempts to undermine them, we urge these representatives to keep pushing this debate forward and to support measures that would rein in the president’s war authority.”
