House Rejects Measure to Bar Military Force in Venezuela

In a tie vote, the House defeated an effort to prohibit the president from using the U.S. military in Venezuela weeks after the raid he ordered that captured the country’s leader.

The House on Thursday just barely defeated a resolution that would have barred President Trump from taking further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval, weeks after he ordered a raid there without consulting or winning approval from lawmakers.

The measure failed in an unusual tie vote of 215 to 215, with two Republicans crossing party lines in favor. It was the third unsuccessful attempt in the House to rein in Mr. Trump’s war-making authority since his administration began striking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific oceans in September.

The action came weeks after U.S. forces made a surprise incursion into Caracas to capture President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, and a week after the White House managed to kill a similar measure in the Senate by persuading Republican backers to turn against it.

The defeat was the latest instance of Congress ceding authority to a president who has aggressively tested the bounds of his military power.

While most Democrats and a handful of Republicans have raised alarms about the scope and durations of the administration’s military actions, G.O.P. leaders have generally sought to avoid confrontation with Mr. Trump, declining to challenge him as he has expanded the use of force with limited consultation and no formal authorization by Congress.

The effort was led by Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, who had offered a nearly identical resolution weeks before the raid, which failed by two votes.

The resolution that was defeated on Thursday, cosponsored by Representatives Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, and Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, drew the backing of every Democrat as well as Mr. Massie and Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska. The tie vote, which under House rules amounts to a defeat, was the latest reminder of the fragility of the G.O.P. majority, which has grown so narrow that it allows for few defections or absences.

Still, Republicans scrambled to call absent lawmakers back to Washington to help them thwart the resolution. They framed the measure as unnecessary and irrelevant since there were currently no American boots on the ground in Venezuela.

“There are no troops in Venezuela,” Representative Brian Mast of Florida, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, declared from the floor moments before the vote took place. “Let me say it one more time for you all: There are no troops in Venezuela.”

One by one, Republican lawmakers rose on the floor to echo that argument.

“We are not at war with Venezuela,” Representative Rick Crawford of Arkansas said. Moments later, Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida delivered the party line: “There are no troops in Venezuela.”

That mirrored the strategy that Senate Republicans and administration officials deployed last week to pressure G.O.P. senators who had initially backed an effort to limit Mr. Trump’s power to use more force in Venezuela to reverse course.

“The action they want to stop is not taking place,” said Representative Randy Fine, Republican of Florida.

Democrats said Republicans were willfully ignoring the context of the resolution, which directed the president to “remove United States Armed Forces from Venezuela,” but which they argued was aimed at giving Congress a say in the U.S. military buildup in the region.

“There is still a U.S. aircraft carrier parked in the Caribbean,” Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “Tens of thousands of young American men and women remain on standby.” He argued that the presence of U.S. forces nearby and the use of military warships to enforce an oil blockade on Venezuela were actions that needed to be approved by Congress.

Mr. McGovern was able to force his measure to the floor by invoking a provision of the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires that resolutions to terminate hostilities be considered under expedited procedures.

“It is time for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to grow a spine, obey their oath and do their damn jobs,” Mr. McGovern said.

But even if it had passed, the resolution would have been largely symbolic. It would have faced a number of procedural hurdles in the Senate, including needing the support of more than a dozen Republican senators to reach the 60 votes required to move ahead.

Mr. Massie, known for regularly breaking with his party, said Republicans would come to regret their embrace of Mr. Trump’s broad expansion of executive authority when Democrats once again held the White House.

“The integrity of this institution is at question,” Mr. Massie said. “The executive’s military exercise to capture the leader of Venezuela represents one of most blatant usurpations of congressional authority we have seen in modern times. If we ignore it, we are not merely acquiescing to executive overreach, we are rendering impotent our branch of government.”

Republicans nearly failed to defeat the measure. In the end, they called back Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas, who had not been in Washington this week, to fly back to the capital and cast the decisive vote against it.

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