Just Security: Chadha Decision Leaves Congress Unable to Halt Unauthorized Iran War Without Veto-Proof Majority

Legal scholar Michael Glennon argues in Just Security that the Supreme Court's 1983 Chadha decision inverted the Framers' war powers design: presidents can now wage war indefinitely without authorization while Congress needs a veto-proof supermajority to halt operations. The Iran conflict exemplifies the dysfunction — VP Vance cast a tie-breaking vote to defeat a bipartisan war powers resolution on Venezuela while declaring the War Powers Act 'fundamentally fake and unconstitutional,' then the administration escalated into full-scale war with Iran without congressional authorization. Glennon calls for either overruling Chadha or limiting it to delegated-power contexts, leaving the War Powers Resolution's concurrent resolution mechanism intact for constitutional authority disputes.