November 7, 1973: The War Powers Act

November 7, 1973: Congress passes the War Powers Resolution, overriding the veto of President Richard Nixon.

The idea was to prevent a President from ever again fighting a "back-door war," the way President Lyndon Johnson did with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. Naturally, whoever was President was not going to like this check-and-balance on his power, but Nixon, the most paranoid President up to that point, was especially unhappy with the idea.

Initially, the House of Representatives passed a version on July 18, by a vote of 244-170. The Senate passed a version on July 20, 75-20. A Conference Committee hammered out the differences, and the Senate agreed to the revised version on October 10 (the day Spiro Agnew resigned as Vice President), 75-20. And the House agreed to this version on October 12 (the day Nixon appointed Gerald Ford to be the new Vice President), 238-122.

Nixon vetoed it on October 24. Both houses of Congress took it up again on November 7. The House, needing 279 out of 419 members present to override the veto, did so, 284-135. The Senate, with 93 present, needed 62, and got a vote of 75-18.

Since then, Presidents have usually been careful about working with Congress to take military action. Before doing so, they usually meet with "The Group of Eight": Each major party's leader in each house (the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader, and the House and Senate Minority Leaders), and each house's Chairman of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees.

Only twice has there been a major controversy. In 1982, Congress passed an amendment to the War Powers Act, the Boland Amendment, proposed by Representative Edward Boland, a Massachusetts Democratic colleague of Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill. It limited U.S. assistance to the Contras in the civil war in Nicaragua. President Ronald Reagan signed it this Amendment into law, but was accused violating it as part of what became known as the Iran-Contra Scandal.

And in 2002, President George W. Bush seemed to bully Congress into passing a resolution giving him Gulf of Tonkin-like powers in Iraq, over the most dubious of reasons. Afraid of being tagged as "unpatriotic" by the Republicans and their accomplices in the mainstream media, many Democrats went along with his resolution, which met the standards set by the War Powers Act.

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November 7, 1973 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Phoenix Suns, 122-115 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-92 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The Capital Bullets, as the team now known as the Washington Wizards was known in their 1st season representing the nation's capital, beat the Houston Rockets, 111-97 at the Hofheinz Pavilion (now the Fertitta Center) in Houston. Rudy Tomjanovich, who would later coach the Rockets to back-to-back NBA Championships, scored 36 points.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Buffalo Braves, 130-113 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 4 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Virginia Squires, 111-107 at The Scope in Norfolk, Virginia.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Memphis Tams, 113-89 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Carolina Cougars, 109-100 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

* And the San Antonio Spurs beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 105-104 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

There were 7 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the team then regarded as their arch-rivals, the Boston Bruins, 7-3 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders, by no means yet the Rangers' chief rivals, and the Pittsburgh Penguins played to a tie, 1-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The St. Louis Blues and the Atlanta Flames played to a tie, 2-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat their arch-rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Los Angeles Kings, 5-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Chicago Black Hawks and the California Golden Seals played to a tie, 1-1 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Buffalo Sabres and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The New York Golden Blades lost to the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 10-1 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The New England Whalers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 9-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Toronto Toros beat the Houston Aeros, 5-4 at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.

* And the Los Angeles Sharks beat the Vancouver Blazers, 3-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.