Sen. John Fetterman broke with every other Senate Democrat to cast the deciding vote against a resolution demanding congressional authorization for the U.S. war in Iran, hours after the House narrowly passed its own version.
The Senate voted 47 to 49 on Thursday to reject a war powers resolution introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. The measure would have required the United States to withdraw from hostilities against Iran until Congress formally authorized the military action. Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has built his recent political identity around unwavering support for Israel, was the only member of his party to vote no. One Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, crossed party lines to vote yes. Four Republican senators, Katie Britt of Alabama, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, did not vote.
Had Fetterman voted with his caucus, the tally would have been 48 to 48 rather than a two-vote deficit. His defection made the margin, and it marked the twelfth time the Senate has failed to pass such legislation since the conflict began. Truthout reported that the vote came the same day the House approved its own war powers resolution 214 to 208, with 210 Democrats and four Republicans voting in favor.
Fetterman's vote Thursday was no surprise to anyone who has followed his trajectory. As far back as February 28, he publicly declared his position in terms that left no room for ambiguity.
Just The News reported his statement at the time:
"Committed Democrat here. I'm a hard no. My vote is Operation Epic Fury."
That February vote was the closest any war powers resolution had come to passing since the war began, making Fetterman's position especially consequential. Five months later, his stance has not budged. Last week, he told NBC News that Democrats should stand behind Israel as a "special ally" and warned he would leave the party if it moved to "officially become the anti-Israel party."
The warning was not idle posturing. A Quinnipiac poll found that a majority of Pennsylvania voters believe Fetterman should leave the Democratic Party altogether, a sign that his break with the left is registering with the voters who sent him to Washington.
Van Hollen framed the vote as a test of whether Congress would reassert its constitutional authority over war-making. In a post on X after the vote, the Maryland senator laid out the case in blunt terms:
"The day after starting the Iran war, Trump said it would last 'four to five weeks.' It's now been 146 days. Thousands of civilians have been killed. Prices are spiking again. We must end this war."
Van Hollen's resolution, Senate Joint Resolution 180, would have required the withdrawal of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran pending a formal congressional authorization, the mechanism the Constitution assigns to the legislative branch. Supporters argued that 146 days of combat, with no end date in sight, demanded congressional oversight.
But the resolution never had the votes. And the reason it fell short was not Republican opposition alone. Collins voted yes. Four Republicans were absent. The single Democratic defection is what kept the resolution from even reaching a tie.
Thursday's vote followed a revealing sequence during a ceasefire earlier this year. In June, the Senate actually passed a war powers resolution 50 to 48, with Collins, Paul, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Murkowski all voting with Democrats. The next day, the Senate reversed itself, voting 47 to 50 against the same measure.
What happened in between tells its own story. Trump confronted the Republican senators who had voted yes. He called them "losers" and singled out Cassidy as a "lunatic." He then posted on Truth Social thanking Paul and Cassidy for switching their votes. Paul changed his vote to "present," saying that "hostilities seem to be over." Cassidy, who had previously protested the lack of congressional briefings on the war, simply flipped.
Fetterman's willingness to side with the GOP on this issue stands in sharp contrast to the Republican senators who initially voted their conscience and then reversed course under pressure. Whatever one thinks of Fetterman's position, he has held it consistently and publicly, at significant cost within his own party.
The Senate vote did not happen in isolation. The House had a busy week of its own. On Monday, the House passed a $73 billion Pentagon supplemental funding bill, 216 to 214, in a largely party-line vote. Only two Republicans, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted no.
Then on Thursday, the House passed its own war powers resolution with a slim six-vote margin. The two votes together captured the tension in Congress: lawmakers approved tens of billions in new war funding one day and then voted to demand the president get authorization for the war the money would fund.
Fetterman's growing estrangement from his party extends well beyond foreign policy. He has publicly denounced what he called his party's drift toward socialism, and Senate Republican Leader John Thune has openly said Republicans would welcome Fetterman if he chose to switch parties.
One Israeli government official, unnamed in reporting, said the current arrangement, the United States bombing Iran while Israel sits out the direct fighting, is "best" for Israel. That framing helps explain why Fetterman, who has signaled he may walk away from Democrats over Israel, views opposition to the war powers resolution as inseparable from his pro-Israel stance.
Thursday's vote was the twelfth attempt in the Senate to invoke war powers authority over the Iran conflict. None has succeeded. The constitutional question at the center of these votes, whether a president can wage a months-long military campaign without formal congressional authorization, remains unresolved.
Van Hollen and his allies argue that 146 days of war, civilian casualties, and rising consumer prices demand a congressional check on executive power. Fetterman and the Republican majority argue, in effect, that the war serves American and allied interests and that Congress should not tie the president's hands.
The practical result is clear. The war continues. The House has passed a resolution that has no path through the Senate. And the Senate has now failed a dozen times to assert the authority the Constitution gives it.
When one senator from the minority party can single-handedly keep a war powers resolution from reaching a tie, the question is no longer whether Congress has the will to check executive war-making. It plainly does not.
