WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator John Curtis (R-UT) issued the following video statement regarding the Senate vote on S.J.Res.104, the Iran war powers resolution:
The full transcript of the video is below, and the video file can be downloaded here.
As delivered:
“In just a few minutes, we’ll be voting on a War Powers Resolution. And I wanted to take just a few seconds, there’s so many nuances here, to explain to you back home my vote, and how I voted, and what you can expect from me in this issue.
“I want to start this conversation by saying: the gravity of what’s happening over in Iran is huge. The loss of some service members’ lives, the loss of lives on all sides, the destruction, I don’t think any of us take lightly here in Washington, D.C. And there are, of course, many questions about the President’s authority. And I want to take just a second to make sure everybody understands how this is playing out and how I view it myself.
“I was a very young man at the time of the Vietnam War, but in 1973, Congress was very frustrated with not just the current President, but several presidents before them. So, they passed the War Powers Resolution to rein in the President. In essence, in that resolution, they said a couple of things: one was that the President had to notify Congress; that they had to come back in 48 hours with specifics; that they had to keep us regularly updated through that whole process; and that within 60 days, the hostilities had to be ceased with a possible 30-day extension window that the President could operate in.
“So, while Congress intended for that to rein in the President, it’s actually been used—not just by this President—but literally almost every president since then, both Republican and Democrat, have taken advantage of this 60-day or 90-day window to use a lot of authority—by the way, that is also given to them in the Constitution. While it might be a little unclear because Congress, in the Constitution, has the ability to declare war, the President, in the Constitution, is also the Commander-in-Chief. So, there has been, throughout the entire time of our country, this tug and pull between Congress and the President.
“It’s fair to say, that we want the President to be able to respond to an imminent threat. We want the President to be able to cut off a threat before it becomes imminent. We want the President to have the ability to save American lives that may be taken hostage, and he has to use forces to do that. And we want Congress to declare war. Those frequently come into conflict, as they have here.
“So, I will say very clearly: Yes, I wish I would have been consulted. I wish my vote would have been asked for before this. But the President did act within his legal bounds to do what he has done. The vote that we’re taking this afternoon would simply say, ‘President, you must stop immediately what you’re doing.’ Well, imagine what that would do to our troops. Imagine how the families who lost their loved ones in this war would feel if we simply stopped and pulled away from what we’re doing.
“So, for that reason, the War Powers Act that we’re voting on this afternoon is not the right answer to this. But I do welcome an ongoing, thoughtful dialogue about this balance between Congress, who has the power to declare war, and the President, who is the Commander-in-Chief, to make sure we get that balance just right.”