Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Tim Kaine (Va.) have introduced a new resolution under the War Powers Act that would stop U.S. military strikes against boats from Venezuela that President Trump says are smuggling fentanyl into the United States.
The resolution is privileged, which means it is guaranteed a vote on the floor, even though it has little chance of passing the Senate or the House and would be vetoed by Trump if it ever made it to his desk.
At the very least, it will put Republican senators on record on the question of whether Trump’s use of force against the ships is legally justified. Critics of the president’s actions argue that it violates the law and Constitution.
“Congress alone holds the power to declare war. And while we share with the executive branch the imperative of preventing and deterring drugs from reaching our shores, blowing up boats without any legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens,” Schiff said in a statement on Friday.
Democrats say the administration has ignored requests from Democrats to provide more information about the strikes or details about their legal underpinnings.
“President Trump has no legal authority to launch strikes or use military force in the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. The administration has refused to provide Congress with basic information about the multiple strike it has carried out, including who was killed, why it was necessary to put servicemembers’ lives at risk, and why a standard interdiction operation wasn’t conducted,” Kaine said in a statement.
The resolution will be referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which must discharge it to the Senate floor for a vote within 60 days of the president’s announcement of the use of force.
Schiff and Kaine unveiled their resolution after U.S. forces sank a second Venezuelan boat Monday.
Trump announced on Truth Social that military officials “positively identified extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists.”
Trump signed a secret directive this summer ordering the Pentagon to use deadly force against Latin American drug cartels, which his administration have identified as terrorist organizations.
U.S. forces struck another Venezuelan boat on Sept. 2, killing 11 people. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro condemned the action as a “military attack” on civilians and accused the United States of trying to provoke a war.
