Thread by @RepSlotkin

The resolution I introduced today is intended to make clear that, if the President wants to take us to war, he must get authorization from Congress.

This is simply what our Constitution requires. bit.ly/3a1kl1g

If our loved ones are going to be sent to fight in any protracted war, the President owes the American people a public conversation about why and for what ends.

This resolution is intended to have that debate, as our Founders intended, & to be clear with the public on whether their body has authorized war with Iran.

Members of Congress have a constitutional responsibility to uphold when it comes to authorizing the use of military force.

The United States always retains the right to self-defense.

As a former Shia militia CIA analyst who has served multiple times in Iraq, I have lived Iran's destabilizing activity in Iraq up close and personal.

I have watched friends and colleagues get hurt or killed by Iranian rockets, mortars and explosive devices. And Qasim Soleimani was the architect of some of the worst destabilizing activities in the Middle East.

But his behavior does not mean that the Administration can disregard the Constitution by engaging in a wider war, without consulting first with Congress.

I felt it was important that Congress put down that marker.

We have been at war for nearly two decades and in that time, which has spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations, Congress has voted only twice to authorize the use of military force: first in 2001, and then in 2002.

As an Army wife with a step-daughter & son-in-law currently on active duty, I feel strongly that Congress has long abdicated its responsibility, as laid out in the Constitution, to make the hard decisions we owe our troops and our country when it comes to authorizing war.

We owe it to our military –– and to ourselves as a nation –– to provide our troops clarity, and to abide by the Constitution that they have sworn their lives to protect.