S.J. RES. 54--MOTION TO DISCHARGE--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand to urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to table. We are involved as cobelligerents in hostilities in someone else's war--in a civil war in Yemen.

It is very difficult to dispute the contention that there is no decision made by a government that is more severe, more serious, that carries with it more dire consequences than sending brave young men and women sworn to protect us into harm's way, into battle, into hostilities.

We have been faced with the debate here about what amounts to hostilities. We have the executive branch of government that understandably has defined that term narrowly but in this case so narrowly as to obliterate any meaning behind that word, basically suggesting that we are not in hostilities unless we have people on the ground firing upon an enemy and being fired upon. That is not always the way modern warfare is conducted and hasn't been for some time.

The fact is that we have our uniformed military personnel who are engaged in things like midair refueling on combat missions, refueling the combat aircraft of another country when those combat aircraft are in route to a battlefield, to a theater of warfare. If those aren't hostilities, I don't know what is.

We have been told that we need to do this in regular order. Let's talk about regular order for a minute because, as I mentioned a moment ago, there is nothing more serious than sending our uniformed military personnel into hostilities. We have in this body adopted laws and procedures making it possible for us to receive fast-track consideration of measures that indicate that the executive branch of government has overstepped its power.

We are in our third year involved in this civil war in Yemen--3 years--and yet this hasn't come up for a vote; 3 years and we haven't had anything come out of committee and voted on the Senate floor. Three years ought to be long enough. In fact, the War Powers Resolution gives us expedited consideration. It gives the committee 10 days to consider that. The committee has now had more than twice that time to consider that, and the committee has not put anything out. This is why we are well within our rights, well within the boundaries of what is appropriate, in fact, and well within what the Constitution already grants us, which is the power to declare war. That power, with good reason, was not vested in the executive branch of government. It was vested only in Congress--that branch of government most accountable to the people at the most regular intervals.

The reason this is so important is that before we send our young people into a place where they could die, we want to make sure that an open, honest debate is held in public view, not behind closed doors at the Pentagon or at some other government office building, but right here on the Senate floor and in the House of Representatives. We cannot exercise that power capably, we cannot claim to be mindful, and we cannot be deemed faithful to our oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States if we don't look out for our authorities and if we don't make sure that someone else isn't exercising authority that was granted to this body. That authority belongs not to any one person; it belongs to the people.

If we refuse to take this vote today, if we choose instead to table this measure rather than to allow it to come up for a vote on the Senate floor, we are choosing not to decide, and we will still have made a choice--a choice to abdicate our responsibility. If we make that decision today, then shame on us. It is our prerogative as a coequal branch of government to make sure that we do our job, to do that which only Congress can do.

This is, in fact, a war. There are, in fact, grave humanitarian concerns presented by that war, and that makes it all the more important, not less important, for us to debate this and for us to discuss this under the light of day, in public, and on the Senate floor.

I urge my colleagues in the strongest terms I am capable of communicating to vote against the motion to table.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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