Can the President and Congress Establish a Legislative Veto Mechanism for Jointly Drawing Down a Long and Controversial War?

To find a joint way to draw down the American troops in the war zone, Congress and the President may seek congressional mechanisms to resolve their differences with interactive processes. Then, constitutional issues arise as to whether a congressional mechanism may use a legislative veto – authorization for a drawdown with a reservation of power for a vote by the two Houses of Congress so as to let the President draw down troop levels while reserving congressional power to stop that draw down.  These issues illuminate war powers in the abstract; the issues also apply concretely to the main war of the 2010s, namely, the long war in Afghanistan.

By Charles Tiefer

Commissioner, Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2008- 2011; Professor, University of Baltimore Law School.

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