WASHINGTON — The House deadlocked over an effort led by New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer to halt U.S. military operations against Iran, the latest legislative push to check the Trump administration’s legal authority to wage war against the Middle Eastern nation.
The nonbinding measure (H. Con. Res. 75), which does not have the force of law and the president does not sign into effect, stalled in the House 212-212. Tie votes fail.
As the presiding lawmaker gaveled the vote to a close, Democrats briefly shouted to hold open the vote for a few moments. “Mister Speaker!” some said, shooting up their arms in protest. “One more!”
Had the resolution passed the House, it is unlikely that leaders in the Senate, where Republicans wield a 53-47 majority, would have brought it up for a vote.
‘In the dark’
During floor debate, Gottheimer said he brought the resolution to the floor to prod the administration to state clearly the U.S. military objectives in Iran and brief Congress on the ongoing war, which started Feb. 28 on the president’s order. “I support the administration crushing the Iranian regime,” Gottheimer said. “But that said, you cannot leave the United States Congress any longer — you can’t leave the American people — in the dark.”
Across the New Jersey delegation, Republicans voted against the resolution and Democrats for it. Rep. Tom Kean (R-7th), missing from Washington for weeks as a result of an undisclosed health condition, did not vote.
Since U.S. and Israeli forces attacked Iran more than two months ago, the war has upended the region and beyond, leaving thousands dead, driving up fossil fuel prices and snarling global trade routes, including the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Congress has repeatedly voted down resolutions, in the House and Senate, to force the Iran war to a close.
The war has cost U.S. taxpayers $29 billion so far, Pentagon officials told members of Congress this week.
“I want to see the real figures,” Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st), a member of the House committee that oversees the Pentagon, said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. He remains skeptical of the sum’s accuracy, he said. “Any war is expensive, through the pocketbooks of the people paying for the equipment, certainly serious to those who put their lives in jeopardy.”
Military capacity
Iran continues to threaten commercial vessels in the strait and its military is far from beaten, Admiral Brad Cooper, who oversees troops in the region, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Trump had declared on Truth Social that Iran’s “air defense, Air Force, Navy, and leaders have been destroyed.”
“The Iranian capability to stop commerce has been dramatically depleted through the strait, but their voice is very loud,” Cooper told senators. “And those threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and insurance industry.”
Cooper said: “They are a very large country, and they retain some military capability.”
Only Congress, not the executive branch, has the power to declare war. A formal war declaration has not been made since the 1940s, though some administrations have requested other types of military authorizations for previous conflicts.
Gottheimer invoked the War Powers Act of 1973 in his floor time, as senators — largely Democrats, including New Jerseyans Cory Booker and Andy Kim — have done during debate over the war.
“The problem we have right now,” Booker said on the Senate floor last month during a similar Iran war resolution, “is the inaction of this body.” The Senate voted down that resolution 46-51.
Speaking before the House vote, Gottheimer demanded that Trump brief Congress and the public about his objectives for the Iran war.
After 60 days of conflict, the War Powers Act requires the president to come to Congress for a war declaration or a more narrowly tailored “authorization for the use of military force,” or AUMF.
“Unfortunately, the president has done neither,” Gottheimer said. “I didn’t want to bring this resolution to the floor.” The public is curious, Gottheimer said. “People have lots of questions.”
That 60-day deadline has come and gone.
Other presidents made their cases to Congress for wars, Gottheimer said. The George H.W. Bush administration briefed Congress about war plans in Kuwait in the 1990s. The George W. Bush administration briefed Congress for months before ordering the military into combat in Iraq in 2003.
Nuclear state
Gottheimer, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, bemoaned what he described as a void of information on the war — “no formal briefings, no formal hearings,” he said.
The White House has maintained its primary objective is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Republicans on Capitol Hill described the ongoing war as a window to snuff out a potential Iranian nuclear state, which in late 2025 and early 2026 led a brutal crackdown against dissent, killing thousands of its own citizens.
“This is an historic opportunity,” said Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “They are out of options. This resolution will hinder efforts to bring the threat of a possible [nuclear] weapon to an end.”
In an interview with NJ Spotlight News, Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th) said he supported the Trump administration’s approach.
“They can’t get a nuclear weapon, period,” Smith said. Asked why Trump ordered attacks this year if the U.S. military “totally obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program last year with airstrikes, Smith, citing classified intelligence, said the attacks last year did not destroy everything.
“It obliterated a whole layer of nuclear capability — a whole big layer of it,” Smith said. “But they still have enough for 11 bombs. They’ve said that, they’ve bragged about it.”
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) was in Congress when the U.S. invaded Iraq and sees some parallels.
“I’m against the Iran war,” Pallone said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News before the vote. “I felt that at the time when he went to war that Iran was ripe for a diplomatic solution, and I don’t think he tried hard enough.”
He added: “You should always look at war as a last resort because you are putting troops in harm’s way.”
