The Constitution Project: Bipartisan War Powers Committee Disappointed in Final Report of Baker-Christopher Commission
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 8, 2008
11:20 AM
|
CONTACT: The Constitution Project
Corey Owens
Communications Director
(202) 580-6922
cowens@constitutionproject.org |
| |
|
Bipartisan War Powers Committee Disappointed in Final Report of Baker-Christopher Commission
|
| |
|
WASHINGTON - July 8 - Today, the Constitution Project's bipartisan War Powers Committee expressed its disappointment with the final report of the Miller Center's National War Powers Commission. The Commission, co-chaired by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher, urged in its report (released this morning) that some war powers authority be reserved exclusively for the president in consultation with a small cross-section of Congress, contrary to the delegation of powers found in Articles I and II of the United States Constitution. The Constitution Project's War Powers Committee, co-chaired by former Members of Congress Mickey Edwards (R-OK) and David Skaggs (D-CO), has called on Congress to reclaim the constitutional authority to declare war in Deciding to Use Force Abroad: War Powers in a System of Checks and Balances, which documented and criticized the consolidation of war powers in the hands of presidents of both parties.
"The Baker-Christopher Commission should be applauded for undertaking this thorough study of the power to declare war," said Mickey Edwards, co-chair of the War Powers Committee. "Unfortunately, the Commission has strayed far from the foundation of our system of separated powers by treating the War Powers Resolution instead of the Constitution as the primary source of war powers. The framers of the Constitution, wary of the royal tradition they fled, thought it essential that those who would do the fighting and dying should have some say-through their representatives-in the decision to go to war. The United States Constitution makes it perfectly clear that the declaration of war is the exclusive responsibility of the people's branch. The Commission risks undermining the Constitution's checks and balances by asking Congress to serve as the president's consultant, rather than the other way around."
Section 8 of Article I of the United States Constitution explicitly grants Congress the authority declare war, while Section 2 of Article II designates the President as the Commander in Chief of the nation's armed forces. However, since America's military intervention in Korea in 1950, several presidents have deployed troops overseas without the authorization of Congress. More recently, White House officials argued that President George W. Bush did not need to seek authorization for military operations in Iraq, and that he should seek such authorization only as a political maneuver and not a legal necessity.
To learn more about the work of the Constitution Project's War Powers Committee, visit http://www.constitutionproject.org.
###
|
|
Printer Friendly Version
E-Mail This Article
