After four US Senate Republicans on Tuesday helped Democrats advance a war powers resolution intended to halt President Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran, GOP leadership in the House of Representatives canceled a similar vote on Wednesday, and again on Thursday.
Progressive and Democratic Party leaders in the House were quick to call out Republican leadership, including Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), who Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) said “has cemented his legacy as the speaker who handed the most corrupt president ever complete control over the House.”
“Republicans can run from Trump’s disastrous war, but they can’t hide. Thousands are dead, and gas and grocery prices are up, and progressives will not stop demanding votes… until the war is actually ended,” Casar pledged, as Americans prepared to spend an estimated extra $3.5 billion on gasoline over the holiday weekend.
CPC Chair Emerita Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) similarly said on social media: “Republicans just called off the vote on a war powers resolution because they were afraid it would pass and Trump’s war of choice in Iran would be ended. This is absolutely ridiculous, and a failure of leadership from the Republican Party.”
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) also accused Republicans of refusing to hold a vote “because they knew it would pass,” adding: “The GOP doesn’t care about your skyrocketing costs for gas, groceries, and everything else. They only care about appeasing Trump.”
Absences were the apparent issue for the House GOP on Thursday. Eight Republicans were not there for votes, according to C-SPAN Capitol Hill producer Craig Caplan, and retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who joined with nearly all Republicans to block a resolution last week, had made clear that he intended to support the measure this week.
Cheered on by colleagues, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) took to the House floor to demand answers about the schedule: “Are we not voting on it because the American people are sick and tired of this illegal war that is costing tens of billions of dollars? Gas prices are through the roof. People can’t afford their groceries. Is that why you’re pulling it? You guys don’t have the guts or the balls to vote on this.”
Republican Congressmen Tom Barrett (Mich.), and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and Thomas Massie (Ky.) had broken ranks and joined Democrats for last week’s vote. While Massie was absent on Thursday after a stinging primary loss earlier this week, “some Republicans believed Fitzpatrick and Barrett would vote for the resolution again Thursday before they pulled it,” Politico reported.
Fitzpatrick confirmed that, telling Punchbowl News’ Briana Reilly: “They’re claiming they have two more days to bring it. I was prepared to vote for it.”
After the cancellation, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that “as tonight shows, the deck is stacked against pro-peace Americans: Even when a majority of Americans oppose a war, and a majority of Congress opposes a war, congressional leaders find ways to cancel a vote so that the war can continue!”
“This cowardice makes a mockery of the democratic process—but it will not silence Americans who are in the right that oppose this catastrophic, illegal war,” NIAC added. “We will keep up the momentum until we bring this disastrous and backfiring war to a close.”
Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, suggested Thursday that “the best thing” for Trump and the GOP would be to lose a war powers vote, because then the president “would have cover to make a deal with Iran and let gas prices come down.”
The cancellation of the war powers vote was part of what Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill called “a BIG mess” in the chamber “as lawmakers want to leave for Memorial Day recess,” given that “reconciliation 2.0 is already iced,” and a “GOP-led bill to create a women’s museum is set to fail amid a GOP revolt.” That vote was held, and failed as expected.
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