Bob Corker has his work cut out for him keeping poison pill amendments out of Iran nuclear deal review bill.
In a week when Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are meeting in New York to discuss next steps in negotiating a deal that would remove economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for curtailment of its nuclear program, senators will be debating a bill that would give them the opportunity to reject any agreement the negotiations come up with.
The deadline for coming to a comprehensive pact is June 30. There are still several sticking points between the negotiating parties, which include the U.S., four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Iran and Germany.
The Senate bill—The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, S 615—now has 63 co-sponsors, 18 of them Democratic senators plus independent Angus King who caucuses with the Democrats. The legislation cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously April 14. Those 63 co-sponsors only need four more votes to make their bill veto-proof.
But that doesn't matter. Even if the bill passes the Senate and the House, Speaker John Boehner says he would not have enough votes to override a veto if Congress were to reject an agreement with Iran when it is reviewed. More about that in a moment.
The bill got through the SFRC as a consequence of vigorous efforts by Sen. Bob Corker and ranking committee Democrat Ben Cardin to take poison pills out the original text to that gives Congress 30 days to review and, if unhappy, additional days to reject any deal curtailing Iran's nuclear program. Although it had strong Democratic opposition in committee, that was overcome when President Obama said he could support a bill with the poison extracted. The needed changes were made and Corker managed to keep out amendments that would have restored the opposition from several Democrats and Obama.
But now he's got to do it all over again on the floor of the Senate. How difficult that will be is uncertain. Corker himself has said anything can happen in the "Wild West" of Senate debate and procedure. Others had stronger responses. For instance:
"Anybody who monkeys with this bill is going to run into a buzz saw," Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a possible White House candidate, warned ahead of this week's debate.
What amendments could peel away Democratic support and wreck the chances of the Senate passing a veto-proof bill on the Iran agreement? Read below the fold.
One element that could spur some Republicans to soften their approach is the relatively new tone the administration is taking. For years, long before his terms as Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and various prominent right-wing Americans, have been saying Iran is just around the corner from building or being able to build a nuclear weapon and that has to be stopped, even if it means bombing. Now lead U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman has turned that fearmongering around on them, saying that if no agreement is signed with Iran the nation will be left with the capacity to build a nuke in just two or three months.
The agreement is designed to keep Iran at least a year from this so-called "break-out" status by limiting its stockpile of enriched uranium, putting a ceiling on the number of centrifuges it can keep spinning to enrich more, prohibiting the use of faster more efficient centrifuges, rebuilding a not-yet-online research reactor's capacity for making plutonium and eliminating enrichment at the fortified Fordow center for at least 15 years.
Here's a few of the ways some Republican senators want to amend the review bill:
• Florida’s presidential candidate Marco Rubio wants any deal to require Iran to recognize the state of Israel and release American prisoners being held by Iran.
• Ted Cruz of Texas and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania want Congress to have the authority not only to reject the deal but to approve it.
• Wisconsin's Ron Johnson wants the Obama administration to treat any deal as a treaty not just an executive agreement. That matters. If it's dealt with as a treaty, then the Senate has a major say. With an executive agreement, very little.
• John Barrasso of Wyoming wants an amendment requiring the administration to certify that Iran isn't supporting terrorism that harms Americans. Since this would be impossible for the president to do, it would kill any agreement with Iran outright. Obama had vowed to veto any bill containing such a provision. That's the reason Corker agreed to remove it for the committee vote.
So the debate and maneuvering is certain to be interesting theater. But that may well be all it is.
Speaker John Boehner made a statement over the weekend that makes the whole effort to pass the review legislation a waste of time, especially from the perspective of those in Congress who want the only final deal with Iran to be one the leaders in Tehran would never sign.
Although no companion language to the Senate bill has yet been introduced in the House, Boehner conceded that he doesn't have the votes to override a veto of the legislation by the White House if Congress ultimately decided to reject an agreement with Iran:
Speaking at an off-the-record event Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition's meeting in Las Vegas, House Speaker John Boehner told the audience that he didn't expect that more than two-thirds of Congress would vote to overturn a veto from Obama if Congress voted against a nuclear deal, according to four people who were inside the room for the private talk. [...]
One Republican elected official who attended the Republican Jewish Coalition's weekend event told me many attendees were disappointed in Boehner's prediction. "It seems like Congress can't do anything to stop Obama's Iran deal," the official said. Others who went to the Boehner event expressed a similar concern to me as well.