A bipartisan group of lawmakers is suing the Obama administration for illegally committing U.S. troops to Libya without congressional authorization. I noted in my column this week that the foreign policy debate has taken on a distinctly 1990s feel. A similar group sued Bill Clinton over the Kosovo war, including some of the same legislators: Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Howard Coble (R-N.C.), John Duncan (R-Tenn.), Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), John Conyers (D-Mich.) Ron Paul (R-Texas), Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.)
My guess is that an authorization of force vote would pass the Senate but fail in the House, which is why the president hasn’t sought one. Unfortunately, the War Powers Act is, in my view, no more constitutional than the Libya war.
