Congressional nonbinding resolutions playing with fire

PanARMENIAN.Net - 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, said 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.



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.



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."



Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said nonbinding resolutions are all about politics.



He said 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. 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.

"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," USINFO reports.



October 10, with a vote 27 to 21 the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs adopted the Armenian Genocide Resolution, H.Res.106, which was introduced by Representative Adam Schiff January 30, 2007. The vote in the full House has not been scheduled yet. Meanwhile, several Congressmen recalled their signatures under pressure of the Turkish lobby.