Demand Progress

Washington, D.C. — On Wednesday, Senate Republicans and Vice President J.D. Vance blocked a final vote on the bipartisan Venezuela War Powers Resolution introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) by sustaining a point of order. The maneuver passed 51–50, with Vice President Vance breaking the tie, killing debate and preventing a straight up-or-down final passage vote on blocking unauthorized hostilities in or against Venezuela.

Demand Progress drove millions of constituent contacts to Congress opposing war in 2025 and is leading a campaign to support war powers resolutions on Venezuela. 

The move comes after a bipartisan majority of senators voted last week to advance the resolution, only for the administration to immediately begin pressuring lawmakers to reverse course.

Statement from Demand Progress Senior Policy Advisor Cavan Kharrazian:

“We’re deeply disappointed that Senate Republican leadership chose to hide behind a point of order to avoid a final vote on war powers, and that Senators Young and Hawley, who initially voted to defend Congress’s constitutional authority over war ultimately caved under pressure from the President — a move that only succeeded because Vice President Vance stepped in to break the tie.

What we saw was an effort to dissuade senators from exercising their jurisdiction over war by threatening political careers and offering non-binding assurances the administration hopes Congress will rely on, even though its actions give Congress no reason to do so. Congress’s war powers don’t rest on trust, they rest on law, and legal obligations don’t disappear because of promises.

The point of order itself is unfounded. The administration has refused to say whether Operation Southern Spear has formally ended, has not fully spelled out its plans for ‘running Venezuela,’ which relies on threatening further military action against Venezuelan officials, and is still exercising a naval blockade involving U.S. forces.

At the same time, the extraordinary lengths the administration went to in order to kill this vote shows that congressional pressure is having a real effect. This effort forced the administration to claim it canceled follow-on strikes and to make assurances about the future use of U.S. forces, however non-binding those may be. That threat of congressional pushback now hangs over the administration as it decides how to proceed militarily in Venezuela and elsewhere, which is exactly why Congress should be voting on this resolution, not hiding from it.”