The Senate is set to vote starting Tuesday on Republican amendments that could break a bipartisan bill giving Congress a say in any nuclear deal with Iran and endanger what would likely be a smooth path for the legislation to become law.
The idea that Congress should weigh in on any deal is popular on Capitol Hill — and among Americans — but many Republicans think the compromise worked out between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland doesn’t give lawmakers enough of a role in the process.
Corker and Cardin have been meeting with lawmakers to see if they can work out a way to keep those concerns from upsetting the consensus that has emerged on the bill, which the White House acknowledged by lifting a veto threat. The Foreign Relations Committee approved the bill in a rare 19-0 vote on April 14.
“I just want all the members to know that we’re open for business,” Cardin said Monday.
The legislation would give Congress 30 days to review a deal and decide whether to vote on a resolution of disapproval. If one is adopted, the bill allows another 22-day period during which President Obama can veto the resolution and Congress could try to override his veto.
During that period, Obama may not waive any sanctions written into U.S. law. But if the disapproval resolution is not adopted over his expected veto, that restriction is lifted, clearing the way for an agreement to be implemented.
In effect, the legislation turns the treaty ratification process under the Constitution upside-down. Instead of 67 Senate votes to ratify a treaty, the bill would require 67 votes to block Obama from carrying out any agreement.
But Obama has refused to submit a deal to the Senate as a treaty, and the White House has indicated he would use his executive power to provide Iran the relief from sanctions it expects as a condition of signing any deal.
Corker and other supporters of the bill have noted that this gives the initiative to the president, since Republicans would need to find a veto-proof majority to force him to change his approach, and Democrats are likely to hang together to oppose that.
“Without this legislation passing, Congress will have zero role. The president will go straight to the U.N. Security Council with the suspensions in his hands that we’ve already given him and implement whatever kind of deal he wants to implement,” Corker said Monday.
Americans want Congress to have a say. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday found that 65 percent want a nuclear deal with Iran to be subject to congressional approval, versus 24 percent who oppose the idea. The April 16-21 telephone poll of 1,353 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Sensing the popular mood, and under pressure from conservatives who have accused them of selling out to yet another questionable executive action by the president, Republican senators have introduced amendments that would require Obama to submit any deal to the Senate for approval as a treaty, or treat any agreement like a trade deal, requiring implementation legislation to be passed by both chambers.
Other amendments would require Obama to certify that Iran is no longer supporting terrorism against the United States as a condition of sanctions relief, and to certify that Iran recognizes Israel’s right to exist. Democrats oppose these provisions, arguing that they introduce into the legislation issues that are not part of the talks with Iran and adoption of either amendment likely would kill the bill.
Another amendment that is likely to be a “poison pill” would bar any waiver of sanctions until Iran releases the U.S. citizens it holds, including Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian, former Marine Amir Hekmati and Pastor Saeed Abedini, as well as an account of the fate of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran in 2007 while on a rogue CIA mission.
Republicans have been angered by the refusal of the Obama administration to tie the removal of sanctions to the fate of the imprisoned Americans, but the White House insists that the talks focus only on the nuclear issue.
“The president has said that if the Corker-Cardin legislation stays where it is, he will not veto it. If it becomes something else, then he’ll have to consider his options,” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman said Monday.
