WASHINGTON -- There can be nothing “more immoral” than Congress ducking its war-making responsibilities while American soldiers are fighting and dying -- and going on vacation in the meantime doesn’t make it any better, Sen. Tim Kaine said in a Senate floor speech Wednesday.
Kaine (D-Va.) has tried repeatedly to prod Congress into exercising its constitutional powers to tell the president whether he has the authority to wage his war against the Islamic State. But the furthest he has gotten was a committee vote late in the last Congress, even though under the War Powers Act a commander in chief is only allowed 90 days to unilaterally conduct a military action.
With the one-year anniversary of the United States' strikes against the militants coming on Aug. 8, and Congress starting its monthlong recess this week, Kaine took to the floor to register his disgust that lawmakers never even debated the escalating war.
“Can there be anything -- anything -- more immoral than that? To order troops to risk their lives in support of the military mission that we're are unwilling even to discuss?” Kaine said.
He noted that seven U.S. service members have died to support the undeclared, unauthorized war, which Congress agreed to fund even without debating or voting on the war itself. More than 3,000 Americans have already served in the conflict, and their responsibilities are only expected to grow.
Yet Congress is taking the month off.
Kaine pointed out that Congress is required by law to take time off in the summer. But he also noted the 1970 legislation that mandates that break also allows lawmakers to keep working -- if there is a war declared.
“This provision makes basic sense, doesn't it? Congress shouldn't go out for a mandatory 30-day vacation when the nation's at war,” Kaine said. “It's not right that American troops should risk their lives overseas far from home while Congress takes a month off. “
“The Congress that passed this bill in 1970 had an expectation about how serious war was and how Congress, the institution charged with declaring war, would treat such a serious obligation,” Kaine said. “Well, we are about to go on a one-month adjournment with the nation at war.”
He also pointed out that there is a certain sad irony in the situation.
“How can we go away and adjourn for a month in the midst of an ongoing war?” Kaine said. “That's easy. The part of the statute that creates an exception for the mandatory August adjournment only applies if there has been, quote, a declaration of war by Congress. Because we haven't even bothered to debate or authorize this war, in the year since it started, we are still entitled by statute to take the month of August off.”
Kaine had plenty more to say about a Congress that criticizes President Barack Obama for preferring diplomacy in the case of Iran while it fails to say or do anything about the war in Syria and Iraq. Watch his remarks in the video above.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.