Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) offered this amendment to the 2007 Defense appropriations bill (H.R. 5631). The amendment would bar any funds to initiate military operations in Iran unless it is in accordance with Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which delegates to Congress alone the power to declare war.
The House rejected Hinchey’s amendment by a vote of 158-262 on June 20, 2006 (Roll Call 300). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the power to declare war belongs to Congress, not to the president, and that much power should not be in the hands of one man.
