Democratic members of Congress addressing J Street’s national convention in Washington on Monday used the occasion to rally support for long-shot resolutions coming before the House and Senate this week that will attempt to end U.S. military strikes against Iran. 

“The president’s refusal to pursue consent from Congress, as required by the Constitution, is perhaps his most grievous assault on democracy, and we should not let it stand,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said to the 1,500 activists gathered at J Street’s morning plenary. 

Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) told the crowd that he expects to see “very robust, possibly unanimous support” from congressional Democrats on the measures, which would put an immediate end to U.S. operations against Iran. 

“I’m not the whip, but certainly the caucus seems to be very on board with asserting their constitutional authority,” Casten said. Even some hawkish Democrats, like Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), are expected to vote in support of the measure, although a handful of Democrats, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), have already said they will oppose it. 

Casten was speaking alongside Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), both of whom had recently returned from a J Street-sponsored trip to Israel and the West Bank. Dean said President Donald Trump should have used his State of the Union address last week to more directly discuss the coming attacks on Iran.

“Wouldn’t that have been the time, at least by then, to begin messaging to the American people what the vision and the mission was — if he was going to take this extraordinary military action, and of course, to message it to Congress, to say to Congress, ‘I recognize your role’?” Dean said. “We are a constitutional democracy. We are supposed to actually make sure that the people closest to the ground, closest to the people, have some say.”

The war powers resolutions are likely to fail, given Republicans’ control of Congress and their overall support for the military action ordered by Trump over the weekend. Even if passed, they would need two-thirds support to override an inevitable presidential veto.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) told the audience that even if the war powers resolutions are defeated, Congress still has a role to play in further authorizing U.S. military strikes against Iran.

“Republicans defeating the resolution is not a war authorization. The law is clear: Congress needs to explicitly authorize war through an authorization of the use of military force,” said Schatz. “Congress has a duty not just to check a reckless and lawless president, but also to represent the will of the people. And the people want nothing to do with this.”

On Tuesday, J Street members will go to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers to oppose the strikes and to vote in support of the war powers resolutions. 

“Elected officials are elected for a reason: to put themselves on the record at important moments, and this is one of those moments,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told reporters on Monday. “We urge senators and congressmen to vote in favor of a war powers resolution when it comes to the floor.”

The Young Democrats of America, a leading youth advocacy group representing party members under the age of 36, approved a new platform at its recent national convention accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, raising long-simmering internal tensions over Middle East policy.

The organization, whose biennial convention concluded in Philadelphia on Saturday, narrowly passed a new amendment expressing opposition to the “Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, its occupation of the West Bank, and its denial of civil and political rights on an equal basis in the territories it militarily occupies,” according to an updated foreign policy plank reviewed by Jewish Insider.

The change, which added the “genocide” reference to an existing amendment, was proposed “to reflect current events and align with present-day actions,” according to a platform committee document from the convention.

Other efforts to amend YDA’s Middle East policy plank, which ultimately failed to be adopted, included striking a line endorsing Israel’s “right to exist as a Jewish democratic state,” screenshots shared with JI show. Meanwhile, some delegates also proposed removing language condemning “the oppression of the Iranian government” and backing “anti-regime protests,” among other suggested changes that were met with alarm by Jewish members who are now weighing a collective response.

Even as those proposals were rejected, that such changes were suggested at all “presents a scary reality,” one member of YDA’s Jewish caucus told JI after the convention.

The Jewish caucus declined to comment on the new platform as it decides “how to move forward,” it told JI on Monday.

YDA’s decision to formally describe Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a genocide more broadly underscores how the party is moving away from support for Israel as Democrats show declining sympathy for the Jewish state, according to polls.

The group also approved a resolution at its convention that voiced support for student protests “against U.S. complicity” in what it called the “Israeli government’s genocidal actions in Gaza,” according to a document shared with JI.

YDA, which claims more than 24,000 members, has grappled with internal divisions over its approach to Israel and antisemitism in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. It faced pushback from Jewish caucus members, for instance, who criticized the group’s denunciation of President Joe Biden for condemning violence at campus anti-Israel protests.

YDA did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.