[Peace-discuss] Protecting the Cruz Amendment: How Pelosi-Hoyer-Engel wield power for AIPAC

[Robert Naiman]

https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159171818672656

Protecting the Cruz Amendment: How Pelosi-Hoyer-Engel wield power for AIPAC

Everyone who has studied “political science” understands that one of the
most important powers in politics is the power to “set the agenda.” If you
can control the agenda, you can prevent your opponents from even being able
to effectively pose questions they want to pose in order to organize
against you. This is a key reason that the War Powers Resolution is so
crucial to efforts to stop and end unconstitutional wars. The War Powers
Resolution gives a single Member of Congress the power to “seize the
Acropolis,” to seize control of the floor agenda from the Congressional
leadership. Otherwise, the Congressional leadership can just keep the
question of unconstitutional war off the table on behalf of the interests
they serve.

To understand these dynamics, let’s consider a current example. Advocates
of the Kaine Iran War Powers Resolution which passed the Senate last week
are now pushing for a House vote on it, even though from a “messaging”
point of view, the House already passed the Slotkin Iran War Powers
Resolution, so there’s no value-added there, and even though the Kaine
resolution is a joint resolution which Trump is sure to veto, and even
though everybody knows that supporters of the Kaine resolution in the
Senate don’t have the votes to override. The Kaine resolution passed the
Senate with 55 votes. That’s a very respectable result in a world of
Majority Rule. But in a world where you need 2/3 of the Senate to override
a presidential veto, it’s nowhere close to two-thirds. So it’s a foregone
conclusion that if the House passes the Kaine resolution, Trump will veto,
and the Senate will sustain the veto.

But suppose that the House is taking up the Kaine resolution anyway. What
could you do if there were freedom of opinion on a normal day in the House
Democratic Caucus? You could use the opportunity to try to strip the Cruz
Amendment from the Kaine bill on the House floor. The Cruz Amendment
praises Trump for the assassination of a top Iranian official in Iraq,
which most Democrats claim violated the Constitution because Congress never
authorized the use of military force against Iran, in Iraq or anywhere
else. Kaine went to the Senate floor and urged Senators to oppose the Cruz
Amendment, saying that it fundamentally undermined the idea of his bill.
The Senate Democratic leadership opposed the Cruz Amendment. But the Cruz
Amendment passed the Senate, because “hyper-AIPAC” Democrats from blue
states perceived it as an AIPAC Loyalty Test: Carper (D-DE), Cortez Masto
(D-NV), Hassan (D-NH), Peters (D-MI), Rosen (D-NV), Shaheen (D-NH), Sinema
(D-AZ), Stabenow (D-MI).

OK, well, “Democrats control the House,” right? So the “Democrats” who
“control the House” should be able to strip the Cruz Amendment opposed by
Kaine and the Senate Democratic leadership from the Kaine bill on the House
floor.

Consider: what would happen if some House Democrat tried to introduce an
amendment to the bill to remove the Cruz Amendment on the floor?

Well, the way the House works, whoever wanted to do that would have to
submit that amendment in advance to the House Rules Committee, “chaired” by
Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern. Jim McGovern is a “liberal anti-war
Democrat” who represents a “liberal anti-war district.” Northampton is a
liberal college town, Amherst is a liberal college town. You walk down the
main drag in Northampton, where Jim McGovern’s office is, it’s like walking
down Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Head shops, crystals, tarot readings.
Hippie stuff. These people do not want war. So Jim McGovern’s Rules
Committee should be allowing this amendment, “making it in order,” right?

Wrong. Because the House Rules Committee is not actually Jim McGovern’s
committee. It’s Nancy Pelosi’s committee. It’s “the Speaker’s committee.”
So Jim McGovern would check with Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Eliot Engel
to see if he has permission to allow this amendment. And when he asked for
this permission, he wouldn’t get it. Because Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and
Eliot Engel work for AIPAC.

And so nobody will even bother to offer this amendment, because everybody
knows in advance that Nancy Pelosi’s Rules Committee will not allow it,
because Nancy Pelosi works for AIPAC.

And thus, we don’t even get to have a vote in the House on whether the
House should follow AIPAC on this, because Nancy Pelosi isn’t allowing such
a vote. It’s like AOC said: Nancy Pelosi isn’t even allowing a vote on the
House floor on Medicare for All. Nancy Pelosi isn’t even allowing a vote on
the House floor on whether Democrats should stand with Kaine against the
unconstitutional assassination or stand with AIPAC.

And this is how Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Eliot Engel are wielding
power on behalf of AIPAC on the House floor. It’s like the dog that didn’t
bark in the nighttime, because there was no dog in the nighttime. We’re not
allowed to know which House Democrats would vote with Kaine and which House
Democrats would vote with AIPAC, because Nancy Pelosi isn’t allowing that
vote.

And this is why, if we care about Yemen, it’s crucial that we get a Yemen
War Powers Resolution introduced and voted in the House in March. Because
it’s the only path we have of forcing the issue of ending unconstitutional
U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen to the House floor
against the will of Nancy Pelosi.
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