House Dem renews call for ISIS vote

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Wednesday renewed his call for lawmakers to debate and vote on the authorization of military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) in the upcoming lame-duck session. 

“After three months of presidentially-directed airstrikes and other activities undertaken to ‘disrupt, dismantle and defeat’ ISIL, Congress must” decide whether to grant President Obama “the power to conduct this new war in the Middle East,” Schiff said in a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

{mosads}In September, Schiff, a top member of the House Intelligence Committee, introduced legislation authorizing the use of force against ISIS.

He had also opposed adjourning the House until after the midterm elections and called on Boehner to bring Congress back into session to debate authorization.

Schiff said he believes that “the threat to core American foreign policy interests and our national security from ISIL is sufficient to warrant military force as an element of a multifaceted campaign.”

However, “no president has the power to commit the nation’s sons and daughters to war without authorization from Congress,” he said. 

“This is not a decision that can or should wait until 2015; this action was begun during the sitting of the 113th Congress and it i swell within our ability to authorize it properly before adjourning,” according to Schiff.

Boehner said debating authorization in the lame-duck session is not the “right way to handle this.” He has said Congress should speak on the issue, but that the president should provide the authorization language.

The administration maintains it has legal authority to carry out its current air campaign in Iraq and Syria based on prior military force authorizations from a decade ago that are still in effect, a claim Schiff and other liberal Democrats have rejected.

“The use of the 2001 AUMF as legal justification for current the military action requires an extraordinarily broad and problematic reading of that measure,” Schiff said in his letter.

In a post-election press conference on Wednesday, the president said Congress should approve a new authorization.