Iran Deal: GOP-controlled Congress Hands Obama Another Win
by Steve Byas
TheNewAmerican.com
Saturday, 05 September 2015
With Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) announcing her support for President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, it appears that the president has won yet another “battle” with the Republican-controlled Congress.
Although the Constitution clearly states that any treaty negotiated by the president must have the approval of two thirds of the U.S. Senate, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) paved the way for yet another Obama victory over Congress and the Republicans when he won passage of the Corker-Menendez bill back in April. This legislation flipped the necessity of a president obtaining the vote of two thirds of the Senate to gain treaty approval, creating a situation wherein he, in effect, must have the support of only one third of each house of Congress.
This is because, thanks to Senator Corker and all those members of Congress who voted for his legislation (S. 615), the president would submit the measure (which Obama insists on calling an “executive agreement” rather than a treaty) to Congress, which could then vote a resolution of disapproval. If the measure failed to win two thirds of both houses of Congress, then President Obama could simply veto the act of disapproval.
Constitutionally, Congress had no authority to transfer its powers to the president. The Constitution requires, in Article II, Section 2, that the president of the United States “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” Every member of Congress has taken an oath to follow the Constitution. Nothing is said in that document about allowing members of Congress to surrender any of their powers to the president.
It also makes no practical sense. Without the Corker bill, the agreement still would have required a two-thirds vote in the affirmative, instead of Corker’s one-third. This is like a football team that’s leading by four points (with only three more plays to run out the clock), deciding to punt the ball on first down.
How Corker and others in Congress could have willingly given up their constitutional powers is suspicious and disturbing. In the August 24 edition of the print version of The New American, Senior Editor William F. Jasper concludes that it was due either to “incompetence or skullduggery.”
The Rest…HERE
