U. S. Department of State
USINFO-ENGLISH Digest – 17 Oct 2007 to 18 Oct 2007
Congressional Nonbinding Resolutions Can Stir Passions
(Representatives use resolutions to respond to constituents’ concerns)
(835)
By Eric Green
USINFO Staff Writer
Washington — Although nonbinding resolutions by the U.S. Congress have no
force in law and often go unnoticed, they can evoke a passionate response.
Jackson Diehl, the Washington Post’s deputy editorial page editor, told
USINFO that Congress can use nonbinding resolutions as a first step in
crafting legislation.
Nonbinding resolutions have several purposes, Diehl said. Congress can use
them "just to strike a position" on an issue, to satisfy the concerns of
constituents or to put pressure on the White House about a particular
matter.
Diehl discussed a highly publicized nonbinding resolution in the U.S. House
of Representatives that would label as "genocide" the mass killing of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1917.
The resolution’s main sponsor, Representative Adam Schiff of California,
has 70,000 ethnic Armenians in his Los Angeles area district. The
Democratic congressman, said Diehl, "makes no secret of the fact he’s
trying to satisfy their concerns."
Diehl said another resolution supporter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of
California, has many Armenians in her San Francisco district. Pelosi long
has supported the resolution but had been unable to move the measure to the
House floor for a vote by the 435-member body while the Republicans held a
majority in the House of Representatives. Pelosi’s elevation to speaker —
the highest ranking member of Congress — after the 2006 U.S. midterm
elections gave the resolution’s sponsors a "new opportunity" to bring it
before the full House, said Diehl.
President Bush reiterated October 17 his call for Congress not to pass the
resolution.
"One thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical
record of the Ottoman Empire," Bush said at a White House press conference.
Diehl asked in a March 5 Washington Post article if nonbinding
congressional resolutions really matter.
"Most are ignored by everyone except the special interests they are usually
directed at," Diehl wrote. But Diehl concluded that in the case of the
Armenians, the genocide resolution was important because of its
implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Congress uses several types of resolutions depending on the circumstances.
A concurrent resolution can create joint committees, authorize the printing
of congressional documents or set the date for Congress to adjourn.
Concurrent resolutions also can express the sense of Congress on many
matters of foreign and domestic policy.
In contrast, a joint resolution, passed by both chambers of Congress, if
signed by the president, carries the force of law. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin
joint resolution, for example, led to what historians say was an expansion
of the Vietnam War.
Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University in
Washington, says a nonbinding resolution, like that addressing the violence
against Armenians a century ago, does not change U.S. policy "because it
does not have the force of law."
Lichtman told the Voice of America that nonbinding resolutions are common,
especially in matters in which Congress does not want to change policy or
lacks the votes needed to do so.
CONGRESSIONAL EXPERT COMMENTS
Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in
Washington, said nonbinding resolutions are all about politics.
He told USINFO that members of Congress use nonbinding resolutions in the
hope that they will affect "public opinion enough that it will have an
impact on policy."
Nonbinding resolutions are not sent to the president following
congressional approval, said Ornstein, who appears frequently on American
television as an expert commentator on politics, Congress and elections.
Rather, the resolutions are used as a "symbol" of congressional opinion or
sentiment on a matter, he said.
But symbolism is "not meaningless," Ornstein said. The Armenian
resolution, he said, was a "cheap and easy way" for members of Congress "to
express their solidarity with the Armenian people and especially with the
Armenian-American population."
Ornstein said the resolution "has been around for a long time," because of
the "significant population" of Armenian Americans in the United States.
Armenian Americans are an "extremely affluent and articulate population,"
and "they care passionately" about the killing of their people during the
Ottoman Empire, he said.
The Armenians, said Ornstein, have been pushing in the United States and
worldwide for recognition of the mass killings.
"An awful lot of Congressmen believed that what happened in 1915 to the
Armenians" involved "serious atrocities," said Ornstein. "Recognizing that
a nonbinding resolution was just symbolic, members of Congress said ‘why
not’ pass the measure," he added.
But Ornstein said symbolism has "turned into a deadly serious business"
with huge foreign policy ramifications that caused the resolution to lose
support in Congress.
It is clear, Ornstein said, that members of Congress are "starting to get
the message" that because of the volatility of the issue, the Armenian
resolution is "playing with fire."
The full text (
icle/2007/03/04/AR2007030401047.
html
) of Diehl’s article about the nonbinding Armenian resolution is available
on the Washington Post Web site.