Everyone should ask her how the last cut and run vote worked out for them.
- The overlooked but important part of this statement is that Pelosi will not try to organize a vote to deny the President the means to fund the war. She tried that before and Bush humiliated her. Now she’s trying to attach conditions to the the funding.
I’m not an expert in House rules governing money supply bills, but it would seem on the surface that such a condition would violate the separation of powers. Since the President has authority in the area of foreign policy, to try and dictate what policy he must adopt seems to me to be an infringement on the Executive Branch’s ability to conduct foreign policy. Imagine if this “conditional approval” were to become a standard ploy, we could have all sorts of conditions attached to future bills which could force the President to act in any number of ways - from recognizing the Cuban regime to forcing him to release all the terrorists held at Guantanamo.
The only way that the House can defeat the President’s authority in this area is to deny him the money. Period.