Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., hammered Congress and the Obama administration Thursday for failing to move an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against the Islamic State, an item stalled since last fall, calling the delay “cowardly and shameful.”

“The silence of Congress in the midst of this war is cowardly and shameful,” Kaine said. “How can we explain to our troops, our public or ourselves, this complete unwillingness of Congress to take up this important responsibility. … The president does not have the legal power to maintain this war without Congress. And yet Congress, this Congress, the very body that is so quick to argue against President Obama’s use of executive power, even threatening him with lawsuits over immigration actions and other executive decisions, is strangely silent, and allows an executive war to go on undeclared, unapproved, undefined and unchecked.”