San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Rep. Lee no longer lone voice on wars
WASHINGTON — It was raining on Sept. 14, 2001, and Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee was running down the Capitol steps holding a can of ginger ale.
In a few hours, she would cast one of the most consequential votes of her career, and she had been agonizing over what to do. Soon, though, she would have the clarity she needed.
She was on her way to the memorial service for the victims of Sept. 11. Later that night, she would be the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing the United States to go to war.
It earned her death threats and tens of thousands of pieces of hate mail. But nearly 20
years later, her Democratic colleagues and advocates call it one of her most prescient and careerdefining votes, as Congress comes closer to finally achieving her goal: repealing the blank check she believes lawmakers gave to presidents to wage war in the name of fighting terrorism. “Everybody wishes we were Barbara Lee — otherwise, we wouldn’t be in Afghanistan still,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, DIll., who was in Congress in 2001 and voted for the war powers resolution. “It’s hard to say, ‘I voted for that.’ But no, Barbara was alone.”
Lee was running that day because she originally planned to skip the memorial to talk over her upcoming vote with staffers, before changing her mind at the last minute. She knew she was likely to be alone if she voted not to give President George W. Bush the right to wage war against terrorists anywhere in the world, and she still wasn’t sure what she’d do.
Then she went to the service at the National Cathedral where, she recalls, Bush’s speech sounded full of “the drumbeats of war.” Her mind was made up when she heard the words of the Rev. Nathan Baxter, the cathedral’s dean, which she later quoted on the House floor. He prayed that “as we act, we not become the evil we deplore.”
Lee was the only member of either chamber of Congress to vote against the resolution, which boiled down to a single sentence: “That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
The measure was intended to let the U.S. respond to the terrorist attacks by going after its perpetrators overseas. Less than a month later, the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while praising Lee as a relentless “champion” on the warpowers issue, defended the 2001 vote to The Chronicle as in fact designed to limit the president’s authority.
But the openended authorization has been used by subsequent presidents to engage in military actions and activities throughout the world, including Syria, Libya, the Philippines and Georgia. A 2016 report by the Congressional Research Service found that presidents had cited the bill 37 times in initiating military action or related efforts. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has suggested the Trump administration could use it to legally justify attacks against Iran.
Lee said she was all for responding to the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 3,000 people, but worried the authorization was too openended and was being rushed through Congress at an emotional time. Trained in psychiatric social work, Lee said she knew that “when you’re angry, when you’re sad, when you’re emotional, when you’re frustrated ... you don’t make hard decisions. That’s Psychology 101.”
In a speech on the House floor, Lee implored her colleagues to “just pause, just for a minute, and think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control.” Her plea went unheeded.
There was another influence on Lee: her upbringing in a military family. The first call she received after the vote was from her father, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, who told her always to look for alternatives to putting American troops’ lives at risk.
“He told me, ‘That was the right vote, and you’re going to catch hell, but stand strong. You’re doing this for our troops, you’re doing this for the country,’ ” Lee said.
She said her colleagues had urged her to vote with them, warning that she was likely to be vilified. She was. Lee said she got plenty of death threats, and a challenger for her House seat marched in a New York parade not long after her vote with a sign showing the World Trade Center towers burning and the words, “Barbara Lee hates America.”
“It was so offensive,” Lee said. “It was terrible.”
But she said her mother could have spared her critics the trouble of trying to change Lee’s mind or intimidate her.
“She told people, ‘You don’t know her. If she really believes in something, you know, she’s pretty stubborn,’ ” Lee said. “‘She’s open to listening to different points of views, but if you can’t convince her, forget it.’
“So here we are, 18 years later.”
Bit by bit, Lee saw her support grow as the wars dragged on. By October 2002, Lee was a little less lonely. Twentythree members of the Senate and 133 members of the House, mostly Democrats, voted against the authorization to go to war against Iraq. She formed a group nicknamed the Triad with Los Angeles Rep. Maxine Waters and thenPetaluma Rep. Lynn Woolsey to press for an end to the war, and began introducing the “Lee amendment” seeking to limit funding for it.
“She has been tenacious on it and consistent, and made it a priority each and every session of Congress and every appropriations bill, and I think she has let the rest of the Congress catch up with her,” said Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, who, like Lee, is working to write a new authorization of military force. “That persistence is paying off.”
The issue has also become a feature in presidential races, including the 2020 election. Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has made ending endless war a key component of his campaign, called Lee “a stalwart” leader.
In June, Lee’s measure to terminate the 2001 authorization passed the House for the first time as part of an appropriations bill, though it’s unlikely to get through the Republicancontrolled Senate or withstand a presidential veto if it does.
But Congress has approved other measures seeking to rein in the president’s warmaking authority. In April, both chambers passed a bill led in part by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of Fremont to restrict military operations in Yemen, where a Saudiled campaign is causing widespread famine and civilian casualties. Lawmakers failed to override President Trump’s veto.
With the Trump administration adopting an aggressive posture toward Iran, the House passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act this month by Khanna and Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz that prohibits funding for military action there without congressional approval. The amendment also makes clear the 2001 authorization does not apply to Iran. On Wednesday, the House joined the Senate in voting to block Trump’s sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, sending the bill to his desk.
Lee has been joined not just by longtime colleagues coming around to her position, but by younger members who say the 73yearold congresswoman is a gracious guide who understands that change requires working within politics and mobilizing outside activists.
Rep. Ted Lieu, DTorrance (Los Angeles County), who served in the Air Force, called Lee “an American hero” who cast a “lonely, historic, courageous vote. And she was right.” Freshman New York Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, who has emerged as a Democratic star, said she thinks of Lee “all the time” in her work.
“Her lonely (2001) vote and her standing there was something that impacted me when I was in middle school, high school,” OcasioCortez said. “It was our generation that was sent to war . ... The weight of those decisions is very much on our shoulders. And highlighting that, her exhibiting her courage in that moment, it certainly comforts me in moments I cast lonely votes.”
Khanna, elected to the House in 2016, said his Bay Area colleague sets an example for likeminded members. “She’s involved in the weeds of policy, she’s a coalition builder, she has respect for the institution, and yet is a changemaker,” he said. “She’s really someone who could be a role model to frankly a lot of the next generation of the members of Congress.”
Lee said she’s just as thankful for the new members as they are for her.
“God, help has finally arrived,” she said, laughing. “I am telling you, it’s been mighty lonely here.”
Organizers outside Congress who have worked with Lee also say she has been a steadfast ally.
“The irony of her being most famous ... for being the sole person to take a vote on a single position is that she’s always incredibly willing and eager to work with others to advance what they find to be shared objectives, and that’s true across the aisle,” said Stephen Miles, executive director of the advocacy group Win Without War.
Will Goodwin, government relations director for the progressive veterans advocacy group VoteVets, said Lee has persevered through brutal attacks over the years.
“It’s crazy to go back and read some of the coverage of just how vicious the blowback was for her taking those votes,” Goodwin said. For many people, he added, “that’s the kind of thing that breeds animosity or closes them off. But throughout, she has joined forces and remained active and never gave up.”
Lee said she will keep fighting “until it’s done” — when the 2001 authorization is terminated. And then, she said, she’ll start working on her next target.
“Some people say, ‘Don’t you get tired, or aren’t you going to give up?’ ” Lee said. “Wait a minute. I’m a black woman in America. You don’t get tired. You just keep at it until justice is done and until you get the job done.”