One of my favorite things is to call for new Constitutional amendments. It’s not that I hate the Constitution; it’s just that sometimes I think there are some beneficial laws that we should pass and this is an easy way of short-circuiting the argument about Constitutionality and skipping right to the benefits. I think we need a War Powers Amendment that replaces the current War Powers Act (1973).
The War Powers Act gives unnecessary and dangerous discretion to the President by allowing him to order the military into action unilaterally for 60 days and then an additional 30 days after requesting it from Congress (a request that cannot be denied).
I am all for emergency power for the president to be able to respond to a serious situation that absolutely does not allow for oversight, debate, and pre-authorization; however, three months is far too much time in the twenty-first century.
The original check on the president’s ability to command the military was the Congressional purse strings. But now that we have a gigantic standing army, a Pentagon budget of half a trillion dollars, and carrier battle groups deployed around the world, those purse strings just don’t tug on presidential authority like they used to. Also, it would almost always be political suicide for Congress to “abandon the troops in the field” by refusing to authorize funds and the use of force once American soldiers had been committed to action for three months.
A reasonable War Powers Amendment to the Constitution should have at least these provisions. The president must receive Congressional pre-authorization before any significant commitment of the American military. The two necessary exceptions would be if the action is very small and limited in scope and time frame or if the United States is attacked and must immediately respond to an unfolding threat. In both of these exceptions, I think it is reasonable to require the president to receive Congressional authorization within 30 days or less.
I realize that military force is sometimes a necessary evil, but a War Powers Amendment that more tightly limits the president’s unilateral authority to take the nation to war would be a good thing.
