It had been thought that President Obama would have to use his veto power to protect the Iran Agreement -- and we've know for several days now that opponents to the agreement don't have enough votes to override his veto. But now it looks like a veto won't be necessary. Senate Democrats have protected the president by refusing to allow a vote to kill the agreement in the Senate.
Congress had agreed that they should have 60 days to debate and then vote to kill the agreement -- and if they did not, then it would go into effect. Those 60 days are nearly up, and it doesn't look like the Senate will be able to vote to kill the agreement. Republicans tried to override a filibuster and bring it to the floor with a cloture motion, but they didn't have the 60 votes necessary to get it done. The vote was 58 to 42, and the motion failed.
Harry Reid (Minority Leader) and Dick Durbin (Minority Whip) are to be commended for their untiring effort to round up the 42 votes to prevent the odious (and dangerous) Republican bill from coming to the floor of the Senate. Sadly, four Democrats abandoned their president, their party, and their common sense -- and voted with the Republicans. They are Charles Schumer (New York), Ben Cardin (Maryland), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), and Robert Melendez (New Jersey).
While all four of those senators should be ashamed, Schemer's vote is the most egregious. He is being touted as the person most likely to replace Harry Reid as Senate Party Leader in January 2017 (since Reid is retiring after this term). I believe this vote should disqualify him from being elected to that important post. The post should go to a senator who is loyal to the party, the president, and is willing to do what is good for the country. With his vote, Schumer has shown he fails on all three criteria.
I believe Dick Durbin (Illinois) should be elected to be the next Senate Party Leader, and we should urge Democratic senators to vote for him in January of 2017. He has earned it -- both for his effort to round up the votes for the agreement, and for his many years of loyal service to the Democratic Party in the Senate.
Thanks for the update! I've been super busy and not staying up on the news as I like to.
ReplyDeleteWhat most bothers me is that it seemed at first that Schumer was whipping votes. I don't mind so much the vote itself. I understand that politicians have to do what they have to do. (Although I question whether it was true in this case.) But whipping votes is another matter. If that's true, it doesn't matter that he stopped -- he's disqualified. Also, I'd like to know what he knew and when he knew it. His vote doesn't matter that much to me if the Senate Democrats always knew the deal was safe. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Of course, the truth is that I don't like him anyway -- he's way too much a Wall Street guy. So I'm not the most neutral person.