Two House Votes on Libya Today

According to ABC News and the New York Times, House Speaker John Boehner today will call for a vote on two resolutions regarding the use of force in Libya - one sponsored by Rep. Denis Kucinich, and the other put forward by the Speaker himself.   The Kucinich proposal is here; Boehner's measure can be found here.  (According to the news reports, Kucinich's resolution could have been voted on earlier - and might have garnered the support of a politically diverse coalition - but was postponed.) Kucinich's resolution is the more aggressively written of the pair.  Citing the War Powers Resolution ("WPR"), and styled as a concurrent resolution, pursuant to WPR Section 5(c), it instructs the President to withdraw U.S. forces from Libya within 15 days.  By contrast, the Boehner proposal  is described as a House resolution only, and stops short of commanding a halt to military action.  But it gestures in the direction of Kucinich's resolution, stating:

The President shall not deploy, establish, or maintain the presence of units and members of the United States Armed Forces on the ground in Libya unless the purpose of the presence is to rescue a member of the Armed Forces from imminent danger.

The Boehner resolution also calls on President Obama to explain his decision not to seek prior authorization for the Libya operation, and to submit to the House a laundry list of reports (including, for example, a description of Libya's Interim Transitional National Council, and its relation, if any, to organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah); and reaffirms Congress's power to withhold funding for unauthorized uses of force, including the campaign in Libya. Both resolutions raise obvious political and policy questions, though they do not appear to have legal implications.  By its terms, Kucinich's resolution directly challenges the President's constitutional authority over military matters.  And Boehner's insists upon further explication from the executive branch about its approach to the WPR, and the Libya policy going forward.  But neither resolution will take the form of a bill headed to the President for his signature.  They consequently will not create binding law, or generate any additional legal conflicts with the executive branch beyond what the WPR already requires.