WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today voted for the bipartisan joint war powers resolution, of which he is a cosponsor, to end unauthorized U.S. military involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The resolution passed the Senate 54-46. It will go back to the House of Representatives for a vote before heading to the White House. The White House had issued a veto threat ahead of today’s Senate vote.
“Not only was this war never authorized by the elected representatives of the American people as required by the constitution – it is a humanitarian disaster with an estimated 85,000 children having already died of malnutrition,” Durbin said. “Not another taxpayer dollar or American life should be put on the line in support of this Saudi-led disaster in Yemen.”
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Durbin spoke on the Senate floor prior to today’s vote. He also met with President Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia earlier today.
The joint resolution would halt U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen pursuant to the War Powers Resolution. In March 2018, Durbin supported a similar bipartisan joint war powers resolution to end unauthorized U.S. military involvement in Yemen, which was the first-ever vote in the Senate to withdraw U.S. Armed Forces from an unauthorized war. In November 2018, the Senate voted and Durbin supported again this bipartisan joint war powers resolution following the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Durbin has a long history of defending Congress’s constitutional role in matters of war, regardless of who was in the White House.
