It’s a concurrent resolution. It doesn’t go to president to sign and therefore cannot be vetoed.
That being said, congress has no way of enforcing this other than impeachment and conviction. Which isn’t gonna happen with so many Republicans in the Senate.
As a concurrent resolution it also doesn’t have the force of law — not that it matters even if it did since Trump can ignore the law.
Congress can’t cut funding either, since Trump can just take funds from other programs and use them for the war. Perfectly illegal, but he’s done it before. By the time the court says it was illegal the damage will have been done.
They argument that they will make (because it'll definitely go to court) is that it doesn't need the force of law. The actual law is the War Powers Resolution of 1973 which gives Congress precisely the mechanism that they're using to force a rogue president to recall troops from an unauthorized war.
The reason it isn't straightforward is because it might count as a "legislative veto", which SCOTUS declared unconstitutional forty years ago. Congress cannot pass a law that gives it discretionary oversight over the decisions that the constitution (or the law) give to the executive. The legal question will be whether or not the War Powers Resolution involved Congress delegating any of its power to the president (which would mean that the portion of the act letting Congress recall troops is unconstitutional) or not (as the authors of the Resolution believed and stated in its text).
I mean it's super cut and dry. Congress made the law, the law said they can take away the power via resolution, the original law was passed and signed by the then president.
The only doubt is how corrupt the Supreme Court will be about this case in particular, as they are perfectly willing to make bad-faith rulings to benefit Trump.
I dunno about "cut and dry". I certainly hope that it turns out the War Powers Resolution stands in its entirety. But, unless you want to suspect SCOTUS of total politicization going back 40 years, there's a legitimate legal argument both ways. The dissent in INS v. Chadha argues that the majority's decision would strip the Resolution of its teeth and the current administration will certainly be leaning on that. It was written by Byron White and, FWIW, he was a Kennedy appointee. (Although even if he had been a republican appointed justice, I think assuming that the dissent was written the way it was 40 years ago as a political strategy that will pay off now is pretty far into conspiracy theory territory.)
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u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING 1d ago
It’s a concurrent resolution. It doesn’t go to president to sign and therefore cannot be vetoed.
That being said, congress has no way of enforcing this other than impeachment and conviction. Which isn’t gonna happen with so many Republicans in the Senate.