Senate votes to halt Iran war, then flips

Last week, the Senate seemed to suffer from political bipolar disorder, voting on two consecutive days both for and against ending the war with Iran.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump attended a closed-door Senate Republican Conference lunch at which he lashed out at the four GOP senators who had voted the previous day for a House resolution barring any future U.S. military activities against Iran: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rand Paul (Ky.). The Senate had adopted the resolution, 50-48.

President Trump reportedly asked senators, “Why would anybody vote for the war powers resolution?” Cassidy, who had just lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, rose in anger and asked, “Is that a rhetorical question or do you really want to know?” He then proceeded to offer his own answers, charging the president had not told the American people what’s going on, had not achieved any of his original objectives, and his estimated four-week mission was now in its fourth month. Cassidy’s retorts provoked a high-volume yelling match between the two.

The administration has argued that the resolution is unconstitutional based on the 1983 Supreme Court decision in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha in which the court held that any measure, before it becomes law, must pass both houses and be presented to the president for approval or veto. At issue in the Chadha case was a provision in immigration law that allowed either house, by majority vote, to disapprove the suspension of a deportation order — a so-called........

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