Are Senate Republicans really the bad guys in Iran Deal fiasco?

[Valin]

Legal Insurrection:

When is a treaty not a treaty?

neo-neocon

Monday, July 20, 2015

 

Obama’s Iran deal has generated enormous anger, and some of that ire has been directed at the Republicans in Congress.

 

One of the main accusations against them is that they have made Obama’s task easier by passing Corker-Menendez, a bill that allows them to stop the president from lifting the Iranian sanctions unilaterally, but only with a super-majority because Obama could (and indeed would) veto the bill. Then Congress would end up needing a 2/3 majority of both houses to stop him.

 

Why do it that way, critics ask, instead of the simple route of exercising the Senate’s treaty power (under Article II Section 2 Clause 2 of the Constitution) to advise and consent? That would require a two-thirds vote before the treaty is approved rather than requiring a two-thirds vote to stop it.

 

But what a great many critics fail to appreciate is how watered-down the Senate’s treaty power has already become ever since FDR, and how much the de facto power of the executive to make international agreements without Congress’ say-so has expanded.

 

It’s well worth your time to listen to an interview on the subject with Elizabeth Chryst, who is a former elected officer of the U.S. Senate and an expert on how Congress works in terms of rules and procedures. In this recording, she speaks on the subject of the Corker-Menendez bill and why conservatives are dreaming if they think there was ever any chance of blocking the Iran deal as a treaty.

 

That’s not a reality that Chryst likes, and she knows that her fellow conservatives are very unhappy to hear it; but she thinks it’s a reality they need to face.

 

(Snip)