Why was S. Res. 378 （sponsored by Senator Biden on the Falkland Islands on April 27, 1982）referred to the Foreign Relations Committee for consideration and not brought up for discussion and vote in the full Senate, whereas S. Res. 382 (also sponsored by Biden) was directly introduced, discussed, and voted on by the full Senate?
I’m curious about the procedural differences that allowed S. Res. 382 to be voted on without committee referral, whereas S. Res. 378 required committee consideration first. Why?
Thank you in advance.
(Source: United States of America, Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the 97th Congress, Second Session, Volume 128—Part 6, April 15, 1982 to April 29, 1982, pp.7862, 8266-8276)
A resolution or bill introduced in the Senate is not required to be referred to committee, although the vast majority are. Particularly, resolutions for which there is unanimous or near unanimous support often skip committee referral and are just passed (which happened in this case, the vote on S.Res.382 was 79-1). As to why there were two versions, likely there was some minor language in the first version that someone found objectionable for some reason and rather than have to go through committee markup on that one they just introduced a new resolution with the corrected language.
I imagine it’s to do with the strength of the language involved:
378
the United States should continue to help in the diplomatic efforts to end the crisis but should also prepare to use all appropriate means to assist the United Kingdom in achieving full withdrawal of Argentine forces and implementation of the principle of self-determination.
That sounds like a commitment to provide military aid
382
the United States should prepare to further all efforts pursuant to that Resolution to achieve full withdrawal of Argentine forces from the Falklands.
That sounds very arm wavey non committal. I can see why Congress were much happier passing that
Unless a Senator makes a statement about why they missed a vote, it’s impossible to know.
It used to be more common for Senators to miss votes – if a resolution is going to pass overwhelmingly anyway, why bother to show up? Then in 1984, Democratic Kentucky Senator Dee Huddleston was relentlessly attacked by his challenger for allegedly missing Senate votes to make paid speeches. His challenger ran a famous ad where a man used a team of bloodhounds to search the Capitol for Huddleston because of his missed votes. Up 40 points two months before the election, Huddleston became the only Democratic incumbent to lose their race that year.
Notepick: not Congress, just the Senate. “S. Res.” indicates a resolution merely making a statement on an issue (or deaing with an internal matter of the body) as opposed to plain “S.” which means a Bill intended to become Law that must be obeyed.
But yes, that language in 378 saying the Senate was urging the USA to “use all appropriate means” to intervene in the UK’s behalf probably led enough Senators of enough standing to want to further review it, so off to committee it goes. And then afterward, rather than having to call up a mark-up hearing in the committee to debate what do we mean by this and propose amendments to the language to then report to the full Senate, presenting a whole new “lightened” resolution as 382 that could be quickly brought down and voted on as-is was a way to get over that quicker. It’s not an uncommon practice.
(Also, it can be a political move to cover your bases on the more hawkish side by being able to point to having at least submitted a stronger proposal first before settling for the more general one – even if many of the Senators knew that was what would eventually happen. That’s not uncommon either.)
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That sounds very arm wavey non committal. I can see why Congress were much happier passing that
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Shouldn’t the language of S. Res 382 be stronger in tone than the previous 378?
Not if you want the senators to vote for it. They were not willing to vote for something that sounded like a concrete commitment to providing the British military aid against the Argentinians. On the other hand, arm wavey noncommittal agreements to “further all efforts” are free (but still seen as doing something in reaction to an international crisis). So yeah they were happy to vote for that
Right, the broader, vaguer version is easier to approve more quickly and the Senators can vote for it without being accused of supporting direct intervention. Especially when it’s just a Resolution of support, not an actual law where you want to be more specific.