The War Powers Resolution Act of 1973 is said to have been passed by an “opportunistic” congress who took advantage of public opinion at a time of declining popularity for President Nixon, who was embroiled in the turmoil of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and several other high profile political gaffs (Crook, J., 2012, p. 157). The end result was a piece of legislation intended to further check the executive branch’s power as commander-in-chief to commit US forces to hostilities by granting Congress a greater role in the process. However, with over forty years of various example of executive non-compliance as well as congress’ inability to enforce sections of the resolution, one wonders why the WPRA was ever passed in the first place and why it
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President Reagan never did acknowledging the constitutionality of the resolution, and in his signing statement made clear that he did not agree that the actions in Lebanon triggered the resolution (Crook, J., 2012, p. 161). This instance was the first since its passage that the WPRA had been enacted and a resolution signed into law. To date, every president since Reagan has been subject to measures under the WPRA. Since its passage, there have been over 136 reports filed to Congress pertaining to the Resolution (Crook, J., 2012, p. …show more content…
The political winds were blowing in the direction of change. Following US involvement in Vietnam, the American public had grown weary of President Nixon and his policies. For all of its best intentions, the act has created, among other things, the need for administrations to “reverse engineer” military operations and decisions to deploy US forces so as to comply with or show the necessary evidence as to why compliance was not necessary (Newton, M., 2012, p. 173). It is evident through numerous examples of executive actions that seemingly ignore the WPRA that the president’s role and authorities as commander-in-chief have not been seriously affected, if at all. All it really seems to have accomplished is to add another level of bureaucracy and yet another medium through which partisan bickering can
President Reagan never did acknowledging the constitutionality of the resolution, and in his signing statement made clear that he did not agree that the actions in Lebanon triggered the resolution (Crook, J., 2012, p. 161). This instance was the first since its passage that the WPRA had been enacted and a resolution signed into law. To date, every president since Reagan has been subject to measures under the WPRA. Since its passage, there have been over 136 reports filed to Congress pertaining to the Resolution (Crook, J., 2012, p. …show more content…
The political winds were blowing in the direction of change. Following US involvement in Vietnam, the American public had grown weary of President Nixon and his policies. For all of its best intentions, the act has created, among other things, the need for administrations to “reverse engineer” military operations and decisions to deploy US forces so as to comply with or show the necessary evidence as to why compliance was not necessary (Newton, M., 2012, p. 173). It is evident through numerous examples of executive actions that seemingly ignore the WPRA that the president’s role and authorities as commander-in-chief have not been seriously affected, if at all. All it really seems to have accomplished is to add another level of bureaucracy and yet another medium through which partisan bickering can