Cry and Sigh Congress....

As many of you who read this blog know, I am a big fan of the Federalist Papers, a series of newspaper articles written by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison in between October 1787 and August 1788 at the height of the debate over ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Two of the most important of these are the Federalist 10 and 51 in which James Madison outlines both the challenges of designing government (No. 10) and then (along with Hamilton) offers his prescription for doing so (No. 51).

For those who care to read these two documents, the seeds of the supposed paralysis in the American political system can be found. The (in)famous separation of powers that sets up the brutal competition for authority among the three branches of government is-- brace yourselves-- all by design!!!!! I happen to be a fan of this design, in part because of its frustrating ability to short-circuit the "mischiefs of faction" (No. 10) and thwart the concentration of power (No. 51). 

One area in which the interbranch competition has frustrated many Americans is with respect to the War Powers. The so-called "Enumerated Powers" of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that the Congress has the sole power to declare war. Yet, Madison's division of labor over most issues in the design of the Constitution also assigns the responsibility of "Commander in Chief" of the armed forces to the President in Article II Section 2. While the Constitution manages to distribute a range of authorities across the three branches in ways that set up competition, that competition is a little different where the War Powers are concerned; Congress regularly capitulates to the President.

This past week, President Obama's proposal to Congress to authorize his continued use of force to combat the Islamic State seems to have quietly died on Capitol Hill. There are many interesting things about the Congressional failure to consider the so-call Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), but the most interesting is that just three months ago Members of Congress were getting themselves worked up into a frenzy over whether President Obama needed Congressional approval (Art. 1 Sec. 8 War Powers) to combat the Islamic State. The fight over the War Powers is as old as the republic itself, but really picked up as Americans grew frustrated with the conduct of the Vietnam War. A huge archive of materials on this topic can be found at the Library of Congress, linked here.

What interests me about the evident demise of the AUMF is the lack of incentive for Congress to take control of their Constitutional war powers. For starters, it's impractical for 435 members of Congress to manage a war. For that, a President who is commander-in-chief comes in handy as the focal point. More importantly, Members of Congress, especially in the House, are actually not that interested in foreign affairs. With short, 2-year electoral cycles, House members are in a state of near-constant campaign mode. And, as former House Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neil once quipped, "all politics is local." In other words, bringing home the pork-barrel spending to local congressional districts and getting re-elected is foremost on the minds of most Members, not the President's conduct of hostilities against the Islamic State.

Few members develop a deep background in foreign affairs, and fewer still want to be held responsible for it when things go sideways, as they have with respect to the Islamic State. Hence, more often than not, Members will happily stand in the well of the House and Senate and complain about the President's conduct of foreign affairs, but will seldom take action to intervene. This is what has happened with the AUMF. Congress makes a fuss, but ultimately doesn't necessarily want to have to face voters for having done so if things go awry; much safer to snipe at the President from the sidelines about how he's overstepped his constitutional authority and screwed up American foreign policy. As one small example, Hillary Clinton's vote for the the October 2002 Iraq War Resolution (essentially an AUMF for Iraq) that approved the 2003 invasion still haunts her on the presidential campaign trail on 2015.

What is true of foreign policy generally is true of both the war powers and trade policy in particular. In fact, my last blog post on U.S. trade policy also fits this pattern. In 1983, Robert Pastor referred to this as the "cry and sigh syndrome" (link to Allen Schick, ed., Making Economic Policy in Congress, pgs. 158-89)  in that Congress will frequently moan and complain, but ultimately give way to the President in many areas of foreign affairs.

Much like my trade policy blog post, it seems we've seen this movie called War Powers before too....