House and Senate go different ways on Iran deal votes
The House passes what the Senate can’t (or won’t)
As expected, the Iran deal disapproval measure failed to win the requisite 60+ votes to invoke cloture in the Senate and allow a vote on the merits.
The linked article describes the Congressional Democrats as: “overcoming ferocious Republican opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority.” But the reality is that Obama’s side not only did not get a single Republican vote, it failed to get all the Democratic votes, either. So this was another bipartisan vote—but as usual with Obama, the bipartisanship was all on the side of the opposition to the president.
This “victory” of Obama’s, so “legacy-making,” therefore consisted of Obama getting just enough Democrats on his side to block a vote on the merits (that vote to invoke cloture failed by a margin of two). Even had cloture gotten the necessary 60+, and the disapproval bill come to a vote and been passed, Obama would have vetoed it and there would not have been enough votes to override that veto.
This “victory” consists of Obama’s managing to use a minority vote to allow him to get away with making a deplorable bargain conceding an enormous amoumt to one of our worst enemies, and against the will of a large majority of the American people. It’s the mullahs who are the real victors here. Some legacy.
At almost the same time, the GOP majority in the House—which is able to do what the Senate cannot, because the House has no filibuster or cloture—managed to pass this:
The House on Thursday approved a resolution aimed at laying the legal groundwork to prevent President Obama from lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran until lawmakers get to see the full text of the “roadmap” that governs how Tehran accounts for its past nuclear work.
In a party-line 245-186 vote, members passed the resolution by Mike Pompeo, R-Kansas, and Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. The non-binding measure declares that Obama has not met the requirements of a law enacted in May giving Congress the opportunity to review any nuclear deal with Iran.
The significance of this is unclear, but at least it’s something. The Senate cannot vote on a similar measure without changing the filibuster/cloture rule to make it possible for a simple majority to move to a vote. Even without that, though, this apparently could “be the basis of a lawsuit against the Obama administration, something House Speaker John Boehner said is a possible option.”
Tomorrow the House is planning to go ahead with a vote on a resolution to approve the deal, which will fail to win a majority. My prediction is that this will be mostly along party lines, although some Democrats will join the Republicans in failing to approve. The idea is to get the House Democrats to actually go on record as affirmatively approving the deal, rather than hide from making an official public commitment on the issue.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Comments
It is hard to fathom how far our country has fallen. Who would have guessed 10 years ago the number of hideous bastards and bitches who would hold office, and actually stand up and proudly vote to show their hatred for their country.
Keep video clips and screen caps of every Democrat and MSM spokesmodel crowing over this agreement.
They will be flushed down the memory hole very, very soon.
Mitch McConnell ignored the Constitution and even the idiotic Corker Cardin law in order to hand a win to Obama and a loss to everybody else on Earth.
With leadership like this, who needs Democrats?
How could anyone believe this agreement does not endanger us and our allies? It will start a nuclear arms race in the most radical and volatile region of the world. It’s giving billions of dollars to the leading sponsor of terror, that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds (thousands?) Of Americans, who is chanting “Death to America” and Israel to this day.
The answer is no honest person could believe it does not harm us, and our national security.
So what does that make those in government who negotiated, signed, supported, or did not do everything they could to stop this deal?
RINO setup. Why didn’t the Republicans make the Democrats really filibuster? Why did McConnell set up the vote so quickly? Why did he allow a vote in the first place. The Republican leadership is a bunch of dirty no-goods. All the time McConnell had a smile on his face.
The whole process is an outrage.
This is a Treaty, pretending not to be a Treaty at all to avoid the fact that there is no way 2/3 of the Senate would ever have approved it.
Any future President can flush it away with nothing more than a press conference to announce the fact. It is not binding on any future administration. It is also not binding on any future Congress.
It is very hard for me as a Jew to understand the Jewish legislators who voted for this deal starting with Debbie Wasserman Schultz on down. It’s incomprehensible actually. It’s shameful…
Dems showing love of party over country. Once again. The only surprise is that some are voting against. Read where DWS is in trouble because of her vote in her district. I’ll believe it when I see it.
If there is so much as a 2% chance that fighting a Democrat initiative will create any political backlash for the GOP, they will not take the risk.
We are at war with Islamic terrorism and we are at war with the progressive/liberal coalition. McConnell and Boehner are not war time consiglieres. They are out-manuevered and out-fought at every turn, and the majorities given them have been wasted. And then you have all the lies told to win those majorities. Continuing the analogy, when the GOP sees Democrats in the battlefield before them, their first instinct is to prevent getting killed by surrendering or committing suicide.
“McConnell and Boehner are not war time consiglieres”
Well, unless it is the tea party:
“I think we are going to crush them everywhere”
“I don’t think they are going to have a single nominee anywhere in the country”
Mitch McConnell
I’ll stick with the idea they are on the other side.