When you hear a lawmaker arguing that a War Powers resolution does not have force if it is “concurrent” rather than “joint,” he or she is effectively saying Congress doesn’t have the power to stop a president intent on fighting a war without two-thirds votes in each chamber. 1/x
A joint resolution requires a president’s signature, while a concurrent resolution does not. The War Powers Act contemplates both methods for ending a war. If a president were intent on continuing a war, he would veto a joint resoluton. 2/x
To overcome a veto, Congress needs a two-thirds vote in each chamber. The other option for Congress ending a war is to cut off funding. That also requires presidential sign-off or a two-thirds over-ride of a veto. 3/x
In theory, the War Powers Act gives Congress a mechanism for ending a war that the president started without a declaration by Congress. That mechanism is the concurrent resolution. It hasn’t been used to end a war and many have challenged the constitutionality 4/x
of its form of legislative veto. That is, whether a law passed by Congress and the president — in this case Nixon — can give Congress a new power to restrict the president in the future without the normal legislative process. 5/x
The War Powers Act contains both paths — joint resolution and concurrent resolution. The law is severable, meaning that if the courts found the concurrent resolution unconstitutional the joint resolution would stand and give a president a way to end a war cooperatively. 6/x
All of that is a long way of saying there’s only one way for Congress to stop a war the president has started and wants to continue if the president has even one-third of each chamber in his corner — and that is the concurrent resolution under the War Powers Act. 7/x
So, for clarity’s sake, when you hear that a concurrent resolution isn’t real and that only a joint resolution is real, what you’re hearing is that only the president or a two-thirds supermajority of Congress should have the right to decide when a war ends. 8/8.
