By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Republicans narrowly defeated a resolution on Thursday that would have barred President Donald Trump from further military action in Venezuela without the authorization of Congress, days after a similar measure failed in the Senate.
The House voted 215 to 215, a tie that defeated the resolution which “directs the president to remove United States Armed Forces from Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.”
The vote was largely along party lines in the narrowly divided chamber, where Trump’s Republicans have a 218 to 213 majority. Every Republican except Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against the resolution. Every Democrat voted in favor.
House leaders held the vote open until Republican Representative Wesley Hunt of Texas could return to the Capitol building to cast the decisive no vote. California Republican Tom McClintock did not vote.
The close vote reflected concern in Congress, including from a handful of Republicans, over Trump’s foreign policy. There is growing support for the argument that Congress, not the president, should have the power to send U.S. troops to war, as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution.
Opponents of the resolution had argued it was unnecessary because the U.S. does not currently have troops on the ground in Venezuela.
“We do not have anybody there in Venezuela fighting,” Republican Representative Brian Mast of Florida said in the debate before the vote.
Republicans also accused Democrats of introducing the legislation only as an attack on Trump. “It’s about spite,” Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “You will condemn him no matter what he does.”
‘FOREVER WAR’
Backers disagreed, saying they wanted to keep Trump from pulling the U.S. into another “forever war,” after decades fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“The American people want us to lower their cost of living, not enable war,” said Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs panel.
U.S. forces swept into Caracas on January 3 and captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. A large flotilla of U.S. ships is blockading Venezuela, and has spent months firing on boats allegedly carrying drugs in the southern Caribbean and Pacific.
Trump recently said the U.S. will run Venezuela for years, told Iranians protesting against their government that “help is on the way” and threatened military action to take Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark.
Some Democrats also denounced Trump for leaving most of Maduro’s government in place in Caracas and failing to present a plan for Venezuela after his removal.
“The machinery of repression was left in place and the Democratic hopes of Venezuelans are being left behind,” said Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.
Recent votes on war powers have been very close, with the measure failing in the Senate last week only because Vice President JD Vance came to the Capitol to break a tie.
“If the president is contemplating further military action, then he has a moral and constitutional obligation to come here and get our approval,” said Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a lead sponsor of the House resolution.
The Trump administration argues that Maduro’s capture was a very limited judicial operation to bring him to trial in the U.S. on drug charges, not a military operation.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien Don Durfee and Bill Berkrot)
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