Why has Jesse Helms suddenly softened his opposition to the chemical- weapons treaty? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, thought to be an implacable foe of the controversial treaty, has now indicated he might allow it to come to the Senate floor for a ratification vote. He made the announcement the same day he was cavorting in North Carolina with his pal Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who wants the treaty ratified.
The official Helms explanation is that he’s reached agreement with Democrats on most of the treaty’s outstanding issues. But there’s another explanation behind the startling announcement: threats from Senate majority leader Trent Lott.
For months, Helms had indicated that unless there were major changes in the treaty he would keep it bottled up in his committee and thus prevent the full Senate from voting on it. Democrats responded by threatening to block Senate action on a number of other measures if Lott couldn’t promise consideration of the treaty by April 29, the date it goes into effect. So Lott dispatched one of his foreign policy aides, Randy Scheunemann, to the Senate parliamentarian’s office to see if there was a way to spring the treaty out of the committee without Helms’s consent. Yes, said the parliamentarian, it’s possible. Lott then announced that the treaty would come to a vote once the Senate returns from its recess on April 7.
Helms has opted for now not to break with his leader. And with Helms’s staff alarmed about being rendered irrelevant in the treaty-ratification process, many observers expect the Foreign Relations Committee to approve a resolution of ratification. But it’s still possible that Helms will call Lott’s bluff. After all, threatening to go over the head of a committee chairman in support of the administration is a bit of a risk for Lott. Getting approbation from the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post may not be worth it. And if Helms hangs tough, it’s unclear Lott would dare to end-run him.
