The vote in the House last night was complex, involving amendments, self-executing rules, budgets and statutory and non-statutory caps. David Dayen has some of the rundown, though more of the story keeps coming out. However, the big news of the night to me and others organizing against escalation in Afghanistan was the vote on the McGovern amendment.

The McGovern amendment, if it had passed:

  • Would require the president to provide a plan and timetable for drawing down our forces in Afghanistan and identify any variables that could require changes to that timetable.
  • Would safeguard U.S. taxpayer dollars by ensuring all U.S. activity in Afghanistan be overseen by an Inspector General.
  • Require the President to update Congress on the progress of that plan and timetable

If it had passed, that amendment would have been the beginning of the end of our war in Afghanistan, forcing the President to commit not just to a start of the drawdown – perhaps 2011 – but to and end of the war.

Last night, that amendment got 162 votes.

That’s huge. It’s way more than any amendment of the sort has gotten in the past. A solid majority of Democrats in the House voted for it, something that leadership will have to keep in mind as they develop further bills having to do with the war. And a handful of Republicans voted for it as well, showing that some of the messages Rep. Grijalva and others were sending about fiscal discipline and Afghanistan are sinking in.

Rep. McGovern released this statement after the vote:

“Last night’s vote was an important milestone.  60% of the Democratic Caucus – including Speaker Pelosi, who by tradition rarely votes on the House floor – was joined by 9 Republicans in expressing our strong concerns about our policy in Afghanistan.  This vote should send a signal to the Administration that Congress is increasingly troubled by risking the lives of our troops and borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars for “nation-building” in Afghanistan while we are facing a dire economic situation here at home.  I will continue to work to build bi-partisan support for a meaningful exit strategy from this war.”

The bar for passing more war funding and for continuing this never-ending, strategy-less war just got higher. President Obama, Congress is getting restless. It’s time for a change.