I think he was wrong to rule that ripeness required a vote by a majority of the House.

But when Ron Dellums brought exactly that argument, he brought it under the Constitution, but it was exactly the same argument, right? If the Constitution requires that the President get approval before going into war, why would you need a resolution of Congress to say that? One Congressperson standing alone, one soldier standing alone ought to be able to bring the case to court. Judge Greene ruled contrawise.

I would have agreed with you, but we do have his opinion.

Mr. BERMAN. Well, I actually like my case better than Ron's case because if Ron was not using the War Powers Act and was simply using the declaration of war, I think both historically and, perhaps, legally a court could skirt that.

Obviously, Judge Greene wanted a case under the War Powers Act. That is why you think he is asking for this resolution. But if the War Powers Act had been used, you are saying Dellums didn't use the War Powers Act?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Right.

Mr. BERMAN. So why don't you sue, but use the War Powers Act? Mr. CAMPBELL. I will, as soon as you give me a resolution.

Mr. BERMAN. Why do you need a resolution? You have the War Powers Act. You have conditions. By the way, why are those conditions in Bosnia any different than the conditions in Korea or in the Gulf or in several other places which creates a problem for me because you have chosen an area that might be a source of controversy, where I so much agree with what the President is now doing, that I hate to pick that as the test case.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Indeed, and it is a point-again, will you continue to yield?

Mr. BERMAN. Yes.

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is a point that has been shared by many colleagues. If it were a Vietnam, I would have a different case before this Committee, and one of my colleagues came up and said, "Can you give me a Vietnam? I would like to bring this motion but under a Vietnam," and you can't. You have got to use what is available to the existence of hostilities.

If Judge Greene held that Ron Dellums could not proceed under the Constitution without a resolution of Congress, and that is what he held, a fortiori, he is not going to hold that you can proceed under a statute without a resolution.

Mr. BERMAN. Your goal here is to get a constitutional determination that on the War Powers Act, or at least on the placing of people in harms way and hostilities, the functional equivalent of war, that a President cannot do this.

Mr. CAMPBELL. That is right.

Mr. BERMAN. That makes me nervous.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think it is our constitutional obligation. I was nervous when I took the oath of office.

[Laughter.]

Mr. BERMAN. All right, well, Comrade Nervous, we will-thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.

Mr. Houghton.

Mr. HOUGHTON. I would like to talk against this amendment, but prior to doing so I would like to say there is no more distinguished, no more honorable man in this House. Isn't that the way things begin when you disagree?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Motion to strike.

[Laughter.]

Mr. HOUGHTON. But I do not understand many of the legal or the constitutional niceties here. It seems as if we are refining something which is already reasonably clear to me, in terms of the War Powers Act.

The thing that I worry about, and maybe you can help me on this, is that it is a technical agreement. You have been sitting here and have been countering and explaining, and it is difficult to understand, and it seems to me that, with that amount of difficulty at this particular time, it will send the wrong signal, not only to the country, but to the rest of the world because it is not easily explainable.

If you are right, which you may be, and I don't know, why not another time? Why right now, where the troops have been brought down from about 20,000 to about 7,000, the proportion of our troops to the others are significantly lower, and we have got a very volatile situation there. I just think it sends the wrong signal. Maybe you have an answer to that.

Mr. CAMPBELL. If you would yield.

Mr. HOUGHTON. Yes.

Mr. CAMPBELL. You yield. Thank you.

You cannot bring a case unless there are hostilities. You cannot bring a case unless the War Powers Resolution applies. If I were to bring a case in a theoretic way, the court would throw it out for lack of case or controversy.

I am stuck. I have to wait for a situation where the War Powers Resolution applies, and the War Powers Resolution applies only when there are hostilities or the imminent likelihood of hostilities.

So it is a Catch 22, but it is one that I think we know how to answer. I can try a case when the world is calm. We can wait for that nanosecond-maybe longer than that-but then I would be thrown out of court, and then any time I bring a case when there are hostilities, I will be met with your point.

Indeed, one of the arguments that is made right now is Kosovo, and maybe we are going to have involvement of hostilities in Kosovo. Maybe the Administration is going to put troops into Kosovo. It is better that we decide it now before we put the troops in.

So among differing periods of hostilities this one is relatively calm.

How about the Persian Gulf? Maybe the War Powers Resolution applied when we were building up troops in the Persian Gulf. For heavens sake, let us do it now before that resurfaces.

Mr. HOUGHTON. If I could just reclaim my time for a second. You may be right. I just think it happens to be and, of course, we are all victims of the age in which we live, a very, very sensitive time, and the thing I am worried about, again, and, I don't know, maybe if the world is all calm you don't have an opportunity to

bring this into court. But I just think there is a potential of sending a signal there, and we have got a lot of bad signals in the world. Mr. HOUGHTON. Thank you.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Houghton.

Mr. Hamilton.

Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I think I said most of what I wanted to say yesterday on this but I do want to raise one further question. I think Mr. Campbell is arguing that a vote for his resolution does not raise policy problems because his amendment would not require a troop pullout until after a court decision has been made.

Now, one of the big problems with that is that it cedes a large part of American foreign policy to the courts. It leaves the courts to decide American foreign policy. Rather than helping to definitively assert the congressional War Powers authority, the resolution cedes to the court the decision over if, when, how, and why you remove troops from Bosnia.

Chairman GILMAN. Will the gentleman yield?

May we give the gentleman attention? He has the floor. If there are any conversations, please take them to the anteroom.

Please proceed.

Mr. HAMILTON. Now, what happens if a District Court rules in favor of the resolution and then the Justice Department decides they are going to appeal it? You have got a situation where the conduct of American foreign policy is in the hands of the court, and there is utter confusion.

Do you have a final judgment or don't you have a final judgment? Do we have to wait until a higher court overrules the decision?

I don't think we can put this kind of a cloud over the conduct of American foreign policy.

Now, I know the gentleman also argues that his amendment does not raise policy questions, but I really do differ with him on that point. With or without the amendment, this is not a sense of the Congress resolution. It does not suggest, it does not encourage, it directs the President to remove U.S. forces from Bosnia.

If you accept Mr. Campbell's argument, the resolution, with or without amendment, requires the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Bosnia at some point, with all of the attendant policy ramifications that we were talking about yesterday, and I will not repeat them because I think Members are familiar with them.

I have already expressed my view that if the resolution were to go to the courts, I think it would be judged on narrow grounds, it would be judged to violate the Constitution under the Chadha ruling. The courts have always been reluctant to get into the question of what constitutes hostilities, which triggers the 5(c) paragraph.

So I oppose this amendment, as I do the underlying resolution. I think that it does not stand the test either on policy or legal grounds, and I strongly oppose the amendment.

Mr. BERMAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HAMILTON. Yes, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. BERMAN. I thank you for yielding.

Just following up on this, two more questions. First, I think slower than you, so I am now thinking about what you were saying.

This seems absurd to me that a judge would say the passage of a resolution, which says nothing other than, unless you pass another resolution authorizing it, something comes out is different than a law which says, unless you pass something, the troops must come out.

If that is Judge Greene's decision, I cannot understand for the basis for it. I can't understand why passing this resolution is any different than simply re-enacting the War Powers Act in terms of getting this before the court, Question 1.

Question 2, why would things stand on something which seems sort of crazy to me as a basis for such a fundamental question of whether you contest the constitutionality of the law?

Second, Chadha, I know you think this is not Chadha, but I don't know why you think it is not Chadha. It is a concurrent resolution. It is not a joint resolution. It is an effort to circumvent the President-well, without describing its motive-it circumvents the President in this process. Why, given Chadha, do you think this could work?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I need someone to yield to me and the amber light is on.

Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman still has a minute left.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Hamilton has not yielded to me.

Mr. HAMILTON. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.

On the first point, and I may not have time to get to Chadha, so, please, somebody else yield to me. I want to get to Chadha.

On the first point, you are right. That is why I think Judge Greene was wrong. He should have allowed the case to go ahead straight under the Constitution. But in that he has said it is not ripe for one Member of Congress to bring the case, you need a majority of the Congress to be with you, I am stuck.

I agree with you it is a very difficult position for Judge Greene to have held. Logically, I would not have agreed with it. I criticize it. So does Professor Ely, on whose work I have been relying heavily. But I cannot change it, and I know fairly likely, given how much we have squirmed to get around the difficulty of having to declare war, so courts have squirmed to get around having to make a decision.

Give me the means to force the court to decide.

Chairman GILMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.

Mr. Rohrabacher.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I will be happy to yield to you a minute after I have finished my questions. But let me note that there is no more distinguished and no more honorable a gentleman than you, Mr. Campbell, but I agree with what you are trying to do today, as well as express those sentiments.

I not only support the amendment, Mr. Chairman, but I support the resolution.

Mr. Campbell, is not your purpose to try to remove the troops in Bosnia as soon as possible? Is that your end goal here?

Mr. CAMPBELL. If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes.

Mr. CAMPBELL. My goal is to have a vote in Congress to determine whether our troops should be there. That is my goal.

My secondary goal is to find out whether, and to what extent, the War Powers Act is constitutional. If you wish my view on the policy, I would be happy to share with you that I do think

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is what I am asking you.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I do not hide my position on the policy. I do not think our troops should be there. But I am trying my best to abstract from that. It is not in the resolution.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So someone who wants to get the troops out of Bosnia would support this resolution and this amendment; is that correct?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I would hope so. I think it is correct.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. But even if you don't support that, those people would like our fundamental policy of the United States in the post-cold war era to be that the President of the United States is not able to put troops into hostilities for long periods of time without congressional support. If they support Bosnia, but still would like that position, they still might support your amendment. Mr. CAMPBELL. Indeed. If the gentleman would yield.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, I do.

Mr. CAMPBELL. The very best way to support the policy in Bosnia is to have Congress ratify it. President Bush took this position in the Persian Gulf buildup of 1990, and I voted in favor. I know my colleague did as well.

So that is the answer. Whether you support it or not, let's get Congress on record.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, we just went through a meeting among all of the Republicans, and we were briefed about the terrible crisis that we have in our military; that we are billions of dollars short, that we are developing a hollow military, where planes are not going to be able to take off and our troops are not going to be able to defend themselves because weapon systems have not been maintained.

This was given to us in great detail, and what it indicates to me is not that we should be voting for supplementals as what the purpose of our conference was, but instead it indicates to me that we should be supporting some fundamental change in the way we do things around here to make sure that our troops are not put in jeopardy.

What we have in Bosnia is a situation where we are overextended. The United States is overextended throughout the world. Bosnia is not vital to our national security, and we are spending billions of dollars. The reason we have been put in this situation is that the fundamental law of the land is not being heeded.

Mr. Campbell is right on target to try to make sure that that law is defined and goes through the legislative and judicial process as well, so that we don't get entangled in any more Bosnias. So I am 100 percent behind what Mr. Campbell is doing, and if you would like to answer the last question, go right ahead.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
Mr. Chairman, if I might have Mr. Berman's attention.

It is difficult and it is going to take longer than the time now, but let me at least begin. Do you know Professor Ely, former dean at Stanford, professor at Harvard, and professor at Yale? This is