index

In a bipartisan vote the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a bill on Tuesday which grants Congress the power to review and vote on any final agreement which curbs Iran’s nuclear program.

The White House pushed back for months that it had the full authority to pursue an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program without consultation with Congress.  The administration plan was just to let Congress see the agreement and voice their opinion without voting on the agreement.

This calculation changed as members of the president’s own party voiced strong opposition to how President Obama was dealing with this issue.

The New York Times reported that an unusual alliance of Republican opponents of the nuclear deal and some of Mr. Obama’s strongest Democratic supporters demanded a congressional role as international negotiators work to turn this month’s nuclear framework into a final deal by June 30. White House officials insisted they extracted crucial last-minute concessions. Republicans — and many Democrats — said the president simply got overrun.

“We’re involved here. We have to be involved here,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, who served as a bridge between the White House and Republicans as they negotiated changes in the days before the committee’s vote on Tuesday. “Only Congress can change or permanently modify the sanctions regime.”

Now will be able to voice its own chance at accepting or rejecting any agreement the president negotiates with Iran if one eventually emerges before the June 30th deadline.

The Wall Street Journal wrote, “The Founders required two-thirds approval on treaties because they wanted major national commitments overseas to have a national political consensus. Mr. Obama should want the same kind of consensus on Iran. But instead he is giving more authority over American commitments to the United Nations than to the U.S. Congress.”

The New York Times had different approach to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote, “Every president has negotiated similar agreements as part of executive authority. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has wrongly and inappropriately diminished the president’s power to conduct the nation’s foreign policy as he was elected to do.”

The Washington Post reported that the bipartisan bill is likely to move quickly to the full Senate after the Foreign Relations Committee voted 19 to 0 to approve the measure. It would give Congress at least 30 days to consider an agreement after it was signed, before Obama could waive or suspend any congressionally mandated sanctions against Iran.

During that period, lawmakers could vote their disapproval of the agreement. Any such resolution would have to clear a relatively high bar to become law, requiring 60 votes to pass and 67, or two-thirds of the Senate, to override a presidential veto.

Continuing in its reporting, In passing the legislation, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) hailed the “true emergence” of bipartisanship on a crucial foreign policy issue, and he congratulated Congress for approving sanctions legislation in the first place that “brought Iran to the negotiating table.”

“Despite opposition from the White House all along,” Corker said in a statement released after the vote, he was proud of unanimous committee support for a measure that “will ensure the American people — through their elected representatives — will have a voice on any final deal with Iran, if one is reached.”

Both Democrats and Republicans rebuked the administration as Congress approved sanction and the president can’t just change this aspect of legislation as per the constitution which gives Congress the authority to write laws not the president.

The administration’s argument as reported by the Washington Post throughout the debate over the legislation, the administration insisted that Congress had no power to approve or disapprove any deal Obama made with Iran and could vote only on lifting the sanctions it had passed. Those sanctions, which include waiver provisions that Obama has now given up for at least 30 days, are just part of the long-standing restrictions against Iran, which include other sanctions imposed over the years by executive order that the president retains the right to waive. Still more sanctions have been imposed by the United Nations and the European Union.

This now gives Congress a voice and the ability to approve any deal the United States potentially signs with Iran.  The real question will there be an agreement as Iran has strenuously voiced criticism over the temporary agreement, which differs sharply from what the president has stated they agreed to.

We will have to wait and see what happens between now and June 30th deadline.