Cory Booker Wants to Talk About Congress's War Powers Problem. Not Just Trump's.

On March 5, Senator Cory Booker called out President Trump's military strikes on Iran as unconstitutional. A defensible stance. But six days later, on March 11, Booker filed a War Powers Resolution with four other Democrats—Tim Kaine, Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff, Tammy Baldwin, and Tammy Duckworth—that pointed at a deeper failure.

The resolution didn't target Trump alone. It targeted 53 years of abdication.

The law that presidents ignore

The War Powers Act was supposed to work like this: Congress declares war or authorises force. The president executes the military operation. The mechanism is in the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 assigns Congress the power to declare war and regulate armed forces. Presidents are commanders-in-chief. That's the division of labour.

It hasn't worked that way since 1973, when Congress passed the War Powers Act in the wreckage of Vietnam. The Act requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action. If Congress wants to stop the operation, it must vote to compel a withdrawal within 60 days. The president can claim 30 more days if withdrawal would endanger troops.

That's the legal architecture. Here's what happened instead.

Since 1973, presidents of both parties have violated the Act 131 times. Bush invaded Iraq without a formal declaration. Obama ordered airstrikes in Syria without a vote. Trump conducted strikes in Yemen, Syria, and now Iran. Congress had opportunities to enforce the law each time. Instead, it voted along party lines on March 4 and March 5 to block Iran war resolutions.

The vote that failed

The Senate voted 51 to 49 to reject the resolution. The House voted along similar partisan lines. The fractures cut exactly where you'd expect—except for two Republicans. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted with Democrats. That's not a coalition. It's a rounding error in a party-line vote.

It demonstrates that even the GOP's foreign policy restraint caucus holds no institutional leverage.

On the record

Booker's March 11 resolution invokes Section 5 of the War Powers Act. It's not new legislation. It's a procedural mechanism that forces a congressional vote within 30 days. The mechanism exists. Congress rarely uses it because it loses easily if the parties vote as blocs.

Booker knows this. The point is to force the vote on record.

This constitutes a commitment of armed forces to military operations without a declaration of war or authorization of the use of military force.

— War Powers Resolution filed March 11, 2026

It names the Iran strikes. It cites Article I. It lists the five co-sponsors. It's legally airtight and politically inert.

The cost

Seven U.S. servicemembers have been killed in Middle East operations this year, according to military casualty reports. Oil prices spiked 4 percent following the strikes. The cost to the military budget runs into billions. None of it was debated by Congress. None of it required a vote that would force any lawmaker to say the words "I authorised war."

This is structural. Presidents expanded war powers throughout the Cold War and accelerated after Vietnam. The courts have largely deferred to executive judgement on national security. Congress has ceded authority through inaction. It funds the Pentagon through omnibus defence bills that require no war vote. It treats war as an executive prerogative.

The pattern

Booker's resolution is a document. It won't stop the strikes. But it establishes on the record that Congress refused to debate whether the strikes were constitutional. That's the political argument underneath the legal one.

The War Powers Act was designed to force a conversation. For fifty years, Congress has avoided having it. Bush avoided it. Obama avoided it. Trump avoided it. The parties vote, the missiles fly, and the Constitution sits in a museum.

Booker's March 11 resolution, like the ones that came before it, will probably lose. That's the pattern. But the record will show which lawmakers voted to enforce the Constitution and which voted to let the executive branch ignore it.