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Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his bid for a third term in Saturday’s Louisiana Senate Republican primary, on Tuesday became the fourth Republican senator to vote to advance a war powers resolution directing President Trump to withdraw U.S. armed forces deployed against Iran.
Cassidy joined Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) in voting Tuesday for a motion to discharge the war powers resolution sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The motion passed by a vote of 50 to 47, setting up a future vote to proceed to the motion on the Senate floor.
The resolution is privileged under the 1973 War Powers Act, allowing it to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote instead of having to clear the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation.
Cassidy kept his plan to vote to advance the resolution secret until the last moment. He declined to reveal how he would vote on the measure when asked about it Monday.
Murkowski broke ranks with Senate Republican leaders last week to vote to advance the war powers resolution.
“If U.S. forces are still required to operate in the region or hostilities are resumed, the administration is obligated to seek authorization from Congress and should come before this body, and the American people, making that case,” Murkowski said in a statement explaining her vote last week.
The Alaska senator had voted against several previous attempts to advance a war powers resolution to end hostilities against Iran but changed her position last week after the conflict had dragged on past two months.
Collins began voting to end the military conflict against Iran late last month, just before the 60-day window set forth by the War Powers Act allowing the president to deploy U.S. troops without congressional authorization was about to expire.
Paul has consistently voted in favor of Democratic-sponsored resolutions to end the military conflict in Iran.
Centrist Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) was the only Democrat to vote to block the resolution from coming to the floor.
Tuesday’s vote marked the eighth time since the start of the war that the Senate has voted on a motion to advance a resolution ordering Trump to cease hostilities against Iran, but it marked the first time that such a motion advanced.
Kaine said a vote to discharge the resolution out of committee would simply “allow it to be debated on the Senate floor.”
“If we’re not going to have committee action on the bill, can we not take it up on the floor of the Senate and debate it in front of the American public?” he asked, noting that 14 American troops have been killed in the conflict so far.
Jules Hurst, the acting Pentagon comptroller, told Republican lawmakers last week that the U.S. military conflict with Iran had cost $29 billion so far.
Even if the Senate votes to pass a war powers resolution curtailing Trump’s authority to deploy troops, the measure would still need to be passed by the House and signed by the president to have the force of law.
Trump is certain to veto such a measure, and it’s not close to having two-thirds support in both chambers of Congress to override his veto.
Tuesday’s vote marked the second time this year a group of Republican senators crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats to discharge a war powers resolution from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Five Republicans — Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Murkowski, Collins and Paul — voted with Democrats in January to advance a resolution directing Trump to cease military hostilities against Venezuela.
They voted to advance the measure after Trump ordered a surprise dead-of-night special forces operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Young and Hawley later voted against proceeding to the Venezuelan war powers resolution after Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised them that the administration would not deploy troops to Venezuela without permission from Congress.
Trump lashed out at the GOP senators who voted to curtail his war-making authority.
“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Todd Young should never be elected to office again,” Trump posted on Truth Social after the January vote.
This story was updated at 6:43 p.m.
