The tilting at windmills continues, to the detriment of the country and the world:
House Republicans may have quelled a budding internal revolt with a last-minute tactical switch on the Iran nuclear deal. But now, they have all but committed to settling the Iran fight in the courts — or admitting defeat.
The House plans to vote Friday on a resolution of approval (where a “yes” vote means yes to the deal) instead of a resolution of disapproval (where a “yes” vote means no to the deal) that was previously planned.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised Thursday that House Republicans will “use every tool at our disposal to stop, slow and delay this agreement from being fully implemented” up to and including suing President Obama to keep him from enforcing the Iran deal.
“That is an option that is very possible,” Boehner said.
The strategy shift comes after a group of House Republicans successfully pressed leaders Wednesday not to play ball with President Obamaover two confidential side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that lawmakers have never seen. Without those documents, they argue, Congress’s 60-day review clock under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act never started.
There’s just one problem: In the eyes of the administration, the play clock runs out on Sept. 17 and if Congress hasn’t by then rejected the deal via a disapproval resolution, the Iran pact will take effect.
But the House GOP group pushing this change figures that if Obama isn’t going to hold up his end of the bargain, neither will they. And if the president doesn’t like it? They plan to sue him.
“The law that the president signed, that all relevant documents have to come to Congress before the clock starts ticking, and those documents never came,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) Wednesday.
“A lot of the dialogue we had today was about setting up a lawsuit,” Salmon said.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Republican-led House tried to check an Obama-driven law (see: Obamacare) in the courts. But the tactic wasn’t terribly successful: the Supreme Court sided with the Obama administration on major portions of the health care law, though lawsuits are still ongoing and the GOP won one legal battle on Wednesday that may embolden them.
The House’s latest moves come as implementation of the Iran deal seems all but assured. House Democrats are confident they have enough votes to preserve Obama’s veto of a resolution to disapprove it, and there are likely enough Senate Democrats committed to the deal to block such a resolution from ever reaching the president’s desk.
The House’s new approach, an approval resolution, will undoubtedly fail, given that seemingly all Republicans are opposed to the Iran agreement. But while the exercise allows critics to register their discontent – and claim purity-of-purpose points by not legitimizing the idea that the Obama administration fulfilled its end of the bargain – it won’t do anything to block the deal’s implementation.
The law giving Congress review authority over the deal specifically refers to “consideration of a joint resolution of disapproval.” Any other kind of resolution wouldn’t actually prevent the administration, under law, from implementing the deal.
But the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act also, critics repeatedly note, refers to “side agreements” as one of the components of “an agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran.”
Republicans, and a few Democrats, have been pressuring the administration to produce those agreements for weeks, while the Obama administration argues that it can’t because it doesn’t have a copy of the confidential documents. But the law makes no special allowance for such a situation, if Congress wants to press the point.
And this band of House Republicans does – all the way to the courts.
Thus far, the House isn’t moving toward a lawsuit vote. And House GOP leaders still have the right to act on a disapproval resolution.
But it’s unclear whether Republicans insisting on a possible lawsuit will acquiesce to return to the original plan once they have their way.
Meanwhile, across the Capitol, senators are watching their Republican colleagues and shaking their heads.
“Even if the two side agreements were available and pure as the driven snow…I don’t think that would change our view of whether allowing Iran to industrialize their nuclear program is a bad deal,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday.
Corker stressed that he too, believed the administration had not held up its end of the bargain and that thus, the 60-day clock on Congress’ review period had not started ticking.
But, he added, “the best way to express concerns about the documents, but also concerns about the deal itself, is to vote to disapprove the deal.”
Democrats, confident in their veto-sustaining numbers, are simply standing back and watching the show.
“The question here is quite clear – the Republican conference is trying to make it somewhat confusing: Do you support the agreement or not?” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) whip team on the Iran deal. “These are tactical conflicts to essentially try to avoid the inevitable. In the Senate and in the House, there is sufficient support to sustain a presidential veto, and they just don’t want that day to come.”
It’s “not so much a decision about a wise tactic as it is a badge of integrity about the purity of their position,” Welch added. “That’s the dilemma over there.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...l-iran-deal/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_3_na
House Republicans may have quelled a budding internal revolt with a last-minute tactical switch on the Iran nuclear deal. But now, they have all but committed to settling the Iran fight in the courts — or admitting defeat.
The House plans to vote Friday on a resolution of approval (where a “yes” vote means yes to the deal) instead of a resolution of disapproval (where a “yes” vote means no to the deal) that was previously planned.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised Thursday that House Republicans will “use every tool at our disposal to stop, slow and delay this agreement from being fully implemented” up to and including suing President Obama to keep him from enforcing the Iran deal.
“That is an option that is very possible,” Boehner said.
The strategy shift comes after a group of House Republicans successfully pressed leaders Wednesday not to play ball with President Obamaover two confidential side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that lawmakers have never seen. Without those documents, they argue, Congress’s 60-day review clock under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act never started.
There’s just one problem: In the eyes of the administration, the play clock runs out on Sept. 17 and if Congress hasn’t by then rejected the deal via a disapproval resolution, the Iran pact will take effect.
But the House GOP group pushing this change figures that if Obama isn’t going to hold up his end of the bargain, neither will they. And if the president doesn’t like it? They plan to sue him.
“The law that the president signed, that all relevant documents have to come to Congress before the clock starts ticking, and those documents never came,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) Wednesday.
“A lot of the dialogue we had today was about setting up a lawsuit,” Salmon said.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Republican-led House tried to check an Obama-driven law (see: Obamacare) in the courts. But the tactic wasn’t terribly successful: the Supreme Court sided with the Obama administration on major portions of the health care law, though lawsuits are still ongoing and the GOP won one legal battle on Wednesday that may embolden them.
The House’s latest moves come as implementation of the Iran deal seems all but assured. House Democrats are confident they have enough votes to preserve Obama’s veto of a resolution to disapprove it, and there are likely enough Senate Democrats committed to the deal to block such a resolution from ever reaching the president’s desk.
The House’s new approach, an approval resolution, will undoubtedly fail, given that seemingly all Republicans are opposed to the Iran agreement. But while the exercise allows critics to register their discontent – and claim purity-of-purpose points by not legitimizing the idea that the Obama administration fulfilled its end of the bargain – it won’t do anything to block the deal’s implementation.
The law giving Congress review authority over the deal specifically refers to “consideration of a joint resolution of disapproval.” Any other kind of resolution wouldn’t actually prevent the administration, under law, from implementing the deal.
But the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act also, critics repeatedly note, refers to “side agreements” as one of the components of “an agreement related to the nuclear program of Iran.”
Republicans, and a few Democrats, have been pressuring the administration to produce those agreements for weeks, while the Obama administration argues that it can’t because it doesn’t have a copy of the confidential documents. But the law makes no special allowance for such a situation, if Congress wants to press the point.
And this band of House Republicans does – all the way to the courts.
Thus far, the House isn’t moving toward a lawsuit vote. And House GOP leaders still have the right to act on a disapproval resolution.
But it’s unclear whether Republicans insisting on a possible lawsuit will acquiesce to return to the original plan once they have their way.
Meanwhile, across the Capitol, senators are watching their Republican colleagues and shaking their heads.
“Even if the two side agreements were available and pure as the driven snow…I don’t think that would change our view of whether allowing Iran to industrialize their nuclear program is a bad deal,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday.
Corker stressed that he too, believed the administration had not held up its end of the bargain and that thus, the 60-day clock on Congress’ review period had not started ticking.
But, he added, “the best way to express concerns about the documents, but also concerns about the deal itself, is to vote to disapprove the deal.”
Democrats, confident in their veto-sustaining numbers, are simply standing back and watching the show.
“The question here is quite clear – the Republican conference is trying to make it somewhat confusing: Do you support the agreement or not?” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) whip team on the Iran deal. “These are tactical conflicts to essentially try to avoid the inevitable. In the Senate and in the House, there is sufficient support to sustain a presidential veto, and they just don’t want that day to come.”
It’s “not so much a decision about a wise tactic as it is a badge of integrity about the purity of their position,” Welch added. “That’s the dilemma over there.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...l-iran-deal/?tid=hybrid_experimentrandom_3_na
