WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) don't have much in common -- he's a conservative budget nerd, she's a San Francisco progressive. But they may have just found the first major issue they agree on: declaring war.
Both have said in recent days that one of their priorities for 2016 is debating and hopefully passing a new authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, against the self-described Islamic State group. Congress has ignored the issue for nearly a year and a half, and Senate leaders have signaled they'd like to keep it that way.
But it's looking like a different story in the House. Pelosi said in an interview on Monday with Time magazine that lawmakers need to get to work on addressing the issue.
"From the standpoint of our national security, we are so overdue for a reauthorization of use of military force," she said.
This comes after Ryan told reporters on Friday that it would be "a good symbol of American resolve to have a new AUMF to go after ISIS, to thoroughly defeat and destroy ISIS." He's begun setting up "listening sessions" for members to talk about what they'd like in a war authorization bill, and tapped the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), to oversee the discussions.
It's a stark contrast to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have made it clear they're not interested in setting up a tough war vote. But since this isn't a partisan issue and Ryan and Pelosi are now publicly advocating for AUMF action, the Senate could be forced to deal with it next year.
Why is this even an issue? Congress is in the odd predicament of debating the need to authorize a war that's already been underway since August 2014, spending billions of dollars and approving the deployment of a few thousand troops without authorizing military operations in the first place.
President Barack Obama says he doesn't need congressional sign-off to take military action against ISIS in Iraq and Syria because a sweeping 2001 AUMF lets the president attack anyone, anywhere, if they're connected to the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Since ISIS is an offshoot of al Qaeda, the administration argues, Obama can keep using the old AUMF because it never expired.
Yet lawmakers in both parties disagree that Obama can use a 14-year-old AUMF for a fight against ISIS, and even the president agrees it's not ideal to use an old war authorization for a new fight. Obama sent lawmakers a draft AUMF bill in February, but they couldn't agree on how to amend it.
The reality is that many lawmakers simply don't want to take a tough vote on the war itself, even though they had no problem voting last week to keep funding it.
Prominent legal expert Jack Goldsmith made the case last week that by voting to pay for the war, Congress did, in fact, vote to authorize it. Lawmakers told The Huffington Post they thought his argument was a bunch of hooey.
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