The five Senate Republicans who voted on Thursday to take up a resolution limiting President Trump’s power to take further military action in Venezuela made up an unlikely coalition encompassing the libertarian, centrist and more populist wings of their party.
Their decision to side with Democrats and allow the resolution to advance enraged Mr. Trump, who immediately declared that they should lose their seats in Congress. He condemned their “stupidity.”
The measure has little chance of being enacted, but in backing it, the Republican defectors — for disparate reasons — paved the way for a debate that is likely to expose bipartisan concern about Mr. Trump’s actions in Venezuela and the ways in which he and his administration have circumvented Congress on military matters.
Here is a look at who they are.
Susan M. Collins of Maine
Ms. Collins, a moderate and a Senate institutionalist, has long raised concerns about Congress being sidelined in decisions involving U.S. military force. She had opposed previous war powers measures, but said that the raid that captured Nicolás Maduro — carried out without congressional consultation or approval — prompted her to switch.
“The circumstances have now changed,” Ms. Collins said in a statement after casting her vote in support of the resolution. “While I support the operation to seize Nicolás Maduro, which was extraordinary in its precision and complexity, I do not support committing additional U.S. forces or entering into any long-term military involvement in Venezuela or Greenland without specific congressional authorization.”
Ms. Collins is also the only one of the five defectors who is facing re-election this year, and is her party’s most endangered Republican. That made Mr. Trump’s assertion that Ms. Collins and the other four “should never be elected to office again” particularly striking. She brushed off the criticism, wondering aloud whether Mr. Trump would like to see one of her chief Democratic challengers, Gov. Janet Mills, win the race instead.
“The president obviously is unhappy with the vote,” she told reporters on Capitol Hill. “I guess this means that he would prefer to have Governor Mills or somebody else.”
Todd Young of Indiana
Mr. Young, a conservative former Marine Corps intelligence officer, has frequently voiced concern about Congress’s diminished role in authorizing military force. While he has backed Mr. Trump on a range of defense priorities, he has repeatedly warned that open-ended conflicts risk drifting beyond their legal foundations when Congress fails to act.
“President Trump campaigned against forever wars, and I strongly support him in that position,” he said in a statement. “A drawn-out campaign in Venezuela involving the American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump’s goal of ending foreign entanglements.”
Mr. Young also worked last year with Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, to repeal the measures that authorized the Gulf War and Iraq War, which were invoked by presidents of both parties as justification for a range of subsequent military operations without approval by Congress. He has described the effort as a step to reclaim Congress’s constitutional role in decisions about war and peace.
Josh Hawley of Missouri
A deeply conservative Republican with a populist bent who often aligns himself with Mr. Trump, Mr. Hawley has repeatedly questioned open-ended military commitments and a growing concentration of authority in the executive branch.
Mr. Hawley said that his vote was based on constitutional concerns about what could come after Mr. Maduro’s ouster, including further military intervention in Venezuela.
“My guess: They don’t know what’s going to happen to Venezuela,” he said of the Trump administration.
Even though senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have sought to reassure senators during classified briefings this week that Mr. Trump did not plan to put U.S. boots on the ground, Mr. Hawley said the measure was about what could happen if that was not the case.
“He thinks that’s unlikely, which is great — that’s terrific,” Mr. Hawley said. “But what I had to vote on today was: Does Congress need to authorize future in-country military operations? And I think we probably will need to under Article One.”
Rand Paul of Kentucky
Mr. Paul, a libertarian who has long opposed U.S. military intervention in foreign conflicts, was the lone Republican sponsor of the resolution. His vote was in line with a long-running effort to protect congressional authority and resist what he views as executive overreach by presidents from both parties.
“Current congressional leaders squirm and would like to shift the burden of initiating the war to the president,” Mr. Paul said, criticizing his Republican colleagues who have rejected nearly every effort to claw back authority from an unbound Mr. Trump during his second term. “Less-than-courageous members of Congress fall all over themselves to avoid taking responsibility to avoid the momentous vote of declaring war.”
Mr. Paul has drawn the ire of Mr. Trump on a range of issues.
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
An independent-minded centrist, Ms. Murkowski is one of the few Republicans who has dared to challenge Mr. Trump on a range of issues, and has long been concerned about reclaiming Congress’s role in the use of military force.
Along with Mr. Paul, she has been the only other Republican to vote with Democrats on measures challenging Mr. Trump’s authority to strike vessels in the Caribbean, and to consistently argue for more congressional oversight, bemoaning the fact that lawmakers were being kept in the dark.
“The administration failed to provide Congress with the information necessary to fully evaluate the legal basis for these escalating actions,” Ms. Murkowski said in a statement ahead of the vote. “That was true then, and it remains true today.”
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
Robert Jimison covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on defense issues and foreign policy.
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