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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