Harold Koh got slapped around by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, but that was a small price to pay for the Administration for winning the ultimate battle. In a victory for President Barack Obama, a Senate panel voted Tuesday to approve U.S. participation in the military campaign against Libya and Moammar Gadhafi’s forces. The [...]

In an inexplicable loss for House Speaker John Boehner, a substantial portion of his caucus abandoned him on a vote to limit funding for the US involvement in the NATO mission in Libya. The House was expected to pass the funding limitation today, which would have been a rebuke to the President’s warmaking powers. Instead, [...]

Democrats heard a pitch from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday on supporting the Libya operation. They were not enthused. Even the argument that Republicans wouldn’t challenge a president of their own party the same way didn’t carry much sway. “The president has not developed strong relationships with members of Congress that would allow members [...]

House Speaker John Boehner will bring up a vote tomorrow to defund the US involvement in Libya, a major escalation of the war powers fight in Congress. There are three resolutions prepared for the Rules Committee, all of which could get a vote tomorrow: 1) Authorizing the war operation for one year with a ban [...]

Needless to say, Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman does not agree with his former colleague Harold Koh. It has now been over three months since the first NATO bombs fell on Libya, yet President Obama has failed to request Congressional approval for military action, as required by the War Powers Act of 1973. The legal [...]

This could be a consequential week for the President’s war in Libya. The House of Representatives will vote on limiting or ending funding for the military operation, and given the rising anger on both sides of the aisle about the abuse of war powers it just might pass. Last week, Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat [...]

I said earlier today that the John Boehner gambit, where he offered a competing resolution to Dennis Kucinich’s war powers resolution on Libya, would likely succeed. It did. Boehner’s resolution, which asserts that the President failed to meet its Constitutional responsibilities under the War Powers Act and “provide… a compelling rationale based upon United States [...]

John Boehner’s pathetic performance abdicating the Constitutional responsibility over war powers to the executive continues. The House leadership, prior to a closed caucus meeting, will devise a bill to continue US involvement in Libya, as a counterpoint to Dennis Kucinich’s War Powers resolution to end involvement. This comes just as over 60 House Republicans issued [...]

Dennis Kucinich’s War Powers Act vote to end US involvement in the war in Libya, known as House Concurrent Resolution 51, will get a vote in the House tomorrow. In a letter to supporters, Kucinich laid out his reasons for calling up the vote: This vote shouldn’t be necessary, of course. The United States Constitution [...]

Today marks the 60th day of US operations in Libya. Under the War Powers resolution, this should trigger a Congressional authorization for the war. The idea that the President could unilaterally attack in Libya, a country that did not threaten the United States, is dubious in its own right. But the War Powers resolution is [...]

Republicans are getting worried that corporations might have to admit that they give money to Republicans. Much like the Chamber of Commerce is worried that corporations might have to admit that they give money to the Chamber of Commerce. They are all just very ashamed of themselves, I guess. So they’re trying to stop the [...]