Moran bucks Trump and backs resolution to restrict use of military force against Iran
Sen. Jerry Moran was one of only eight Republicans to vote Wednesday for a resolution that will limit President Donald Trump’s ability to take military action against Iran without congressional approval.
The Senate passed the resolution by a vote of 51-45 on an initial procedural vote. A final vote will take place Thursday. The resolution directs the president to halt military hostilities against Iran unless authorized by a declaration of war or a special authorization by Congress to use military force.
Moran, R-Kansas, was the only senator from Kansas or Missouri to back the measure.
The Kansas senator supported Trump’s January decision to kill Iranian General Qassem Soleimani with an airstrike in Iraq, explaining that Soleimani presented an imminent threat to American soldiers. But he argued in a statement this week that additional military action against Iran would require congressional approval under the constitution.
“Qassem Soleimani was a perpetrator of death and responsible for thousands killed in the Middle East, including American soldiers. The Constitution, through Article II, grants the President of the United States the authority to protect Americans from harm, and President Trump was justified in his decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield,” Moran said in a statement a day before the initial vote.
“The Constitution, in Article I, provides Congress the power to declare war — a responsibility I take seriously. The prospect of military action against Iran has consequences that ought to be considered by the full Congress, on behalf of the people it represents,” Moran said.
The Democratic-controlled House will easily pass the resolution after it narrowly clears the GOP-controlled Senate on Thursday. Trump is expected to veto the resolution when it comes to his desk and the Senate will be short of the two-thirds majority needed for an override.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, the resolution’s sponsor, said he had shared the text of the resolution with Moran last month and walked him through his reasoning, but he had not had an additional conversation with Moran on the issue before he announced his intention to vote for it this week.
“I have a good relationship with Jerry, so when I hand him something like that and he says, ‘I’ll think about it,’… I knew he would seriously consider it,” said Kaine, who grew up in Johnson County.
The White House outlined its opposition to the resolution Wednesday and Trump sounded off on Twitter ahead of the vote.
“If my hands were tied, Iran would have a field day. Sends a very bad signal. The Democrats are only doing this as an attempt to embarrass the Republican Party. Don’t let it happen!” Trump said.
The effort to rein in Trump on foreign policy comes a week after the Senate voted to acquit the president in an impeachment trial.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, explicitly compared the resolution to impeachment in a speech Wednesday morning.
“If a senator’s priority is genuine oversight, there are countless tools in their toolbox. They can hold hearings. They can engage the administration directly,” McConnell said. “Instead, like impeachment, this war powers resolution cuts short that interplay between the branches. It short-circuits the deliberation and debate.”
Before making his decision to back the resolution, Moran discussed the issue with Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, two Republicans who also supported the resolution, said a spokesman for Moran.
The Kansas senator had concerns about the resolution’s initial wording and worked with Lee on revisions to ensure the final version of the resolution showed respect for the president’s obligation to defend against imminent threats, according to Moran’s office.
Moran said in a short interview after the vote that he would not have voted for the original version of the resolution. He also pushed back on the notion that he was bucking the president by supporting it.
“What I voted for was something that I’ve voted for in the past regardless of who the president is and, in my view, reflects what the Constitution requires,” Moran said.
“I think it’s important for my role as a United States senator that regardless of who the past president, the current president or the future president is you have to abide by the Constitution.”
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, a member of GOP leadership and the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wasn’t surprised by the handful of Republican defections.
“We always have a handful of members who feel differently about this than I do. I’ll vote against this resolution. I think it’s not well-thought out enough,” Blunt said Wednesday morning. “The votes on this, my own view would be, are largely in place no matter what the resolution says.”
Moran has voted with Trump 83.5 percent of the time and voted for his acquittal last week, but he’s also repeatedly joined Democrats in efforts meant to restrict the president on foreign policy and use of military force.
Moran voted last June for a Democratic amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have restricted Trump from making unauthorized military operations against Iran, and he has voted twice in the last two years to restrict U.S. involvement in the civil war in Yemen.
He also voted last year to restrict the administration from relaxing sanctions against Russian companies and voted against the president’s effort to redirect funding for military construction projects to border security. However, in all of these cases the Senate was either short of the votes needed to pass the measure or to override the president’s veto.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said he had not discussed the war powers resolution with his fellow Kansas Republican.
A former Senate Intelligence chairman, Roberts argued that Congress should look for ways to monitor military force decisions without hamstringing the president’s ability to deal with threats. He argued Congress moves too slowly to deal with threats in the modern world.
“We can’t even decide when to adjourn,” Roberts said. “You got to give any president the authority to respond.”
In a floor speech, Kaine argued that Congress has erred in recent decades by ceding too much of its power over decisions on military force to the president.
“This is not a resolution about the president. The resolution does not say anything about President Trump or any president. It’s a resolution about Congress,” Kaine said.
“This is not an effort by a Democrat to point a finger or restrain Republicans. No, in the history of this country — even in recent history — I believe we’ve gotten it wrong with the initiation of war whether the president was a Democrat or a Republican.”
McClatchy’s Emma Dumain contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 1:42 PM.
