WASH­ING­TON — House Re­pub­li­cans re­ject­ed a pair of De­mo­c­ra­t­ic-backed res­o­lu­tions yes­ter­day that would have put a check on Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s pow­er to use mil­i­tary force against drug car­tels and the na­tion of Venezuela.

De­moc­rats forced the votes us­ing war pow­ers res­o­lu­tions, as Trump has stepped up his threats against the South Amer­i­can na­tion and Con­gress has ques­tioned how the US mil­i­tary is con­duct­ing a cam­paign that has de­stroyed 25 ves­sels al­leged­ly car­ry­ing drugs and killed at least 95 peo­ple.

The leg­is­la­tion would have forced the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion to seek au­tho­ri­sa­tion from Con­gress be­fore con­tin­u­ing at­tacks against car­tels that it deems to be ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions in the West­ern Hemi­sphere or launch­ing an at­tack on Venezuela it­self.