Senate Dems block GOP measure to kill Iran deal

By Burgess Everett

The 58-42 vote ensures the Iran deal’s survival.

Senate Democrats on Thursday successfully blocked a measure meant to kill President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, dealing a decisive defeat to Republicans’ attempts to derail the controversial agreement and ensuring its survival.
With a 58-42 vote, Democrats filibustered the disapproval resolution that Republicans and other deal opponents had tried to send to Obama's desk, where it would have been vetoed. But with more than enough support from Democrats to sustain that veto, the fight largely turned to the minutiae of Senate procedure and the suspense of whether Democrats would halt the bill from reaching the White House altogether.

Republicans immediately branded Democrats as obstructionist for using the Senate's supermajority requirement to kill the disapproval resolution. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) moved to set up a do-over for next week, but Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said the result will be the same.
"He's lost the vote," Reid said of McConnell. "Any future attempts to re-litigate this issue in the Senate will meet the same outcome and will be nothing more than wasted time."
Obama cheered the vote from the White house, saying he was “heartened that so many Senators judged this deal on the merits, and am gratified by the strong support of lawmakers and citizens alike.”
The historic vote unfolded with Reid and his chief vote-counter Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) watching their caucus more closely than they usually do on roll calls, with Reid leaning over the voting roll for nearly the entire 30-minute episode to monitor his whipping operation's efficacy. The confusing procedure of voting against a disapproval resolution temporarily led Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to look to Durbin for guidance: Durbin gave a big thumbs down as Franken voted against the GOP.
As Democrats cleared the 41-vote bar that ensured the deal would survive, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) shouted "Yes! Yes!" Durbin grabbed New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker as the clock ticked down to take him to the well for a vote. Booker's "no" vote elicited another excited "yes!" from Feinstein as Democrats hit 42.
Just four Democrats voted with Republicans: Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Ben Cardin of Maryland.
"There's bipartisan opposition to this deal. Only Democratic support," McConnell fumed at Democrats. "You own it!"
Unable to move their legislation forward, frustrated Republicans instead lobbed rhetorical attacks against Democrats in the final hours of the Iran debate, knowing they couldn't ultimately stymie Obama's deal. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a long-shot candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, warned of "holy hell" after the deal ultimately goes into effect.
"Sen. Reid has come out of nowhere to change what was the common understanding of how we would proceed," Graham said. "But no, we couldn't do that. We're more worried about protecting Barack Obama from having to veto this than you are about having a debate on the floor of the Senate."
Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican, remarked: "It always amazes me how compliant the [Democratic] caucus seems to be to what the leadership tells them."
"I can guarantee you as the whip on the Republican side it doesn't work on our side," Cornyn added. "We've been always more of a bottom-up caucus as opposed to top down."
The fate of Obama's deal — which lifts some economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict controls on Tehran's nuclear ambitions — was already sealed when the White House secured 34 Democratic votes in the Senate last week. Those pledges of support meant Obama had enough support to sustain his veto of the disapproval bill.
But the White House and key allies in the Senate continued to whip up votes among undecided Democrats, winning the backing of senators such as Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Booker — all once viewed as potential votes against Obama's deal. All supported the filibuster, viewed by Democrats as a muscular defense of Obama's deal.
On top of the Senate machinations, the disarray sparked by a conservative revolt in the House one day earlier complicated the GOP-led Congress's response on Iran even more.
The outcry from conservatives — who wanted GOP leaders to delay the Iran vote until the Obama administration handed over the text from the so-called "side deals" between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran — forced the House to recalibrate their strategy.
Their new, three-step plan ends with the Republican chamber voting on a resolution to approve the Iran deal — a measure that's certain to fail and the complete opposite of what the Senate voted on.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who also argued that the Iran vote should have been delayed, wrote to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday suggesting ways that Cruz said would halt the Iran deal. McConnell and Cruz engaged in a long conversation on the floor on Thursday during the Iran vote, with Cruz stalking off after what did not appear to be friendly banter.
Meanwhile Republicans' won the vote of Schumer, but that never translated to the additional votes that the GOP needed to win. Schumer didn't try to get his colleagues to change their minds, even on the question of whether a filibuster of a disapproval resolution was appropriate for such a weighty matter.
"While I came to a different conclusion than many in my own caucus, I recognize for them, this is a vote of conscience," Schumer said in his first floor remarks since he announced his opposition to the Iran deal in early August. "Just, as it is, for me."
In the House, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, also opposes the nuclear deal - anchoring a small pocket of opposition among House Democrats that hailed largely from the Empire State. And the scores of Democrats who backed the deal did so with caveats, conceding that the agreement between six world powers and Iran was not perfect.
"This agreement is flawed. It is not the agreement that I would prefer," said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who aligns with Democrats. "There are elements of it that I wish could be improved."
But King added: "The question is, how does this deal, no matter what its flaws, compare with the alternatives out there?"
Democrats seemed prepared for the likely onslaught of attacks from Republicans for supporting the deal.
"This is one of those votes of conscience where you have to look in the mirror and feel comfortable with what you're doing and have no regrets," said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, one of the last Democratic senators to announce a position on the Iran deal. "This is one you will remember the rest of your life."