🔻U.S. House of Representatives votes to stop war with Iran; Senate rejects

While the U.S. House of Representatives today voted to limit the U.S. president’s powers regarding war with Iran, the Senate failed to approve a similar resolution. The non-participation of three senators who had previously been supporters of limiting the president’s powers effectively led to the defeat of the resolution’s backers.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution with 214 votes in favor and 208 against, calling for Donald Trump’s war on Iran to be halted in the absence of authorization from Congress. Four Republican representatives voted for the resolution alongside Democrats. However, the resolution was rejected in the Senate by a margin of two votes.

This is the second time the House of Representatives has tried to limit the president’s powers in this regard by passing a resolution.

The House vote is considered an important opposition to how the U.S. president manages the war, but it is not binding and even if it had been passed in the Senate, it would not have forced the government to end the war.

There is no agreement regarding the extent of the legal power of the House resolution. Some consider these actions symbolic efforts, but some Democratic lawmakers say that the resolution could have been legally binding if the Senate had approved it, because no court in the United States has objected to it.