A group of Democratic lawmakers is prepared to use every procedural tool at their disposal to paralyze the Senate unless they can grill Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over the rapidly spiraling conflict in Iran.
“We’re trying to force the Senate to do its job,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said on Monday. “We are going to use every lever that we have to stop business as usual and force the Senate to do what it should have done already.”
In addition to Booker, a man with presidential aspirations, the effort to force public hearings on the war has been joined by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) who were among a group that introduced war powers resolutions last week to compel President Donald J. Trump to seek congressional approval for military action in Iran.
“Democrats must use all leverage possible to try to stop Trump’s illegal war in Iran,” Schiff said in a Monday post to X, sharing a media report on the effort. “We’re demanding public hearings. And will continue to force votes on the Senate floor.”
Democrats must use all leverage possible to try to stop Trump’s illegal war in Iran.
We’re demanding public hearings.
And will continue to force votes on the Senate floor.
We’re standing up for every American who doesn’t want to see service members risk their lives, or to have… pic.twitter.com/E0CMvmAPTa
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) March 10, 2026
“We are demanding there be hearings, debate, questions answered — that the Senate do its job,” Booker told reporters at the Capitol. “It is unacceptable that we have not had hearings and we have not had a sufficient debate on the issues in public … in hearings, witnesses under oath. That is what we are demanding.”
“As senators, we have the right to force a vote and debate every single day in the Senate. That’s not a right under the rules, by the way, granted to us by the majority. That’s a right given to us by the statute,” Murphy said, referring to the War Powers Act, a 1973 law from the Vietnam era designed to put a check on a president’s power to drag the nation into war without congressional approval that Kaine used to force a vote on Iran last week.
“Americans want President Trump to lower prices—not drag us into unnecessary forever wars. Yet he has unilaterally launched strikes at Iran without congressional authorization, failed to articulate a clear strategy, and callously said he doesn’t ‘have the yips about boots on the ground,’” said Kaine in a March 3 statement.
“I think it will become harder and harder as this war gets uglier and uglier, deadlier and deadlier, more costly and more costly, for Republicans to continue to vote in favor of this war,” Murphy said of the Democratic strategy to continue forcing Republicans to cast their votes, going on record as the U.S. becomes more mired down and costs mount.
“As if food prices weren’t hitting your pocketbook hard enough, now gas prices are another sucker punch, Duckworth said in a Monday post to X. “This is Trump’s doing. Higher costs and more war is not what he promised.”
As if food prices weren’t hitting your pocketbook hard enough, now gas prices are another sucker punch.
This is Trump’s doing. Higher costs and more war is not what he promised. https://t.co/evrYtmfmbu
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) March 9, 2026
“It’s going to spread, it’s already spreading,” the Illinois Democrat also said.
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