Senate

Bottom Falls Out on New START Opposition

By Adam Sorensen | @adamsorensen | December 21, 2010 | +

UPDATE: The Senate voted 67-28 to end debate on the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.  Only 60 ayes were required and 11 Republicans broke ranks to support it. 67 votes is also incidentally the number of votes the full Senate would need to ratify the agreement, which now seems nothing short of a foregone conclusion. A final vote is expected tomorrow.

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, number three on the Republican leadership team, will support ratification of the strategic arms agreement. With the leadership split and moderates such as Scott Brown already crossed over, more GOP Senators have the latitude to back the treaty. National Review’s Rich Lowry hears it could go as high as 75 votes in favor overall. The next vote, expected around 2 p.m. ET today, is to close debate and requires 60 votes. Final ratification will need a two-thirds majority, meaning 66 votes if Ron Wyden, who is recovering from prostate surgery, is absent.

Alexander’s statement this morning on the Senate floor:

I have reviewed the plan that calls for spending $85 billion over the next ten years on nuclear modernization. I have visited our outdated nuclear weapons facilities. I am convinced that the plan’s implementation will make giant steps toward modernization of those facilities so that we – and our allies and adversaries – can be assured that the weapons will work if needed. The president’s statement that he will ask for these funds and the support of senior members of the Senate Appropriations Committee means that the plan is more likely to become a reality. This will make sure the United States is not left with a collection of wet matches.

..

Over the weekend the president sent a letter to the Senate reaffirming ‘the continued development and deployment of U.S. missile defense systems …’ There is nothing within the Treaty itself that would hamper the development or deployment of our missile defense. Our military and intelligence leaders all have said that. Obviously, something could happen down the road, for example, involving differences between Russia and the United States over missile-defense systems that could require either country to withdraw from the treaty. That is any sovereign country’s right with any treaty. In 2002, President George W. Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty because of our desire to pursue missile defenses to protect us from an attack by a rogue state.

Related Topics: Republican Party, Senate

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  • http://elvisberg.wordpress.com Elvis Elvisberg

    With the leadership split and moderates such as Scott Brown already crossed over, more GOP Senators have the latitude to support ratification.
    -
    Because lord knows nothing ever trumps politics for most of them. “Sure, there’s no substance to our objections… but we really like objections.”
    -
    Credit to Sen. Alexander. This is a very good thing for our security.

  • lcky9

    Looks like a few Republicans don’t like their jobs.. that’s OK they WILL be replaced ASAP some are just there on probation like oh say BROWN…

  • stuartzechman

    Adam Sorensen:
    .
    You write:
    .
    “moderates such as Scott Brown”
    .
    What do you mean?
    .
    Scott Brown is a “moderate” what?
    .
    Is the Senator a moderate leftist, or a moderate rightist, or a moderate centrist?
    .
    Or do you mean “moderate” in some other way, as in “moderate partisan?”
    .
    If you meant the term to be shorthand for “moderate conservative,” could you please take the extra pixels to write “moderate conservative,” so that folks can get a more precise idea of what you’re describing?
    .
    Thanks so much for considering this, Adam Sorensen.

  • austerityintruthiness

    So do the right wing nutjobs think nothing should get done when there’s a Democratic president? Other than tax cuts, that is? If they can attack START, the Zadroga bill, even DREAM, what is ok for Congress to pass? I don’t understand these people at all…

  • jsfox

    Just a heads up. Primary Brown and he gets replaced by a Democrat. Now this works for me. However I do have to ask, what part of O’Donnell, Miller, Angel all losing do you Tea Party folks not get.

    And I rather doubt the Tea Party would prevail in a primary over Brown who’s popularity within the state has only increased as he has moderated.

  • nflfoghorn

    OMG looks like the ambushed president gets another big victory.

  • robbert5

    I hear Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell are out of a job. Maybe they are willing to move to MA and challenge Scott Brown? We really haven’t heard or seen enough of them the past year….

  • jsfox

    Well O’Donnell might consider moving to Salem. I hear the Salem Witch Museum is looking for some knowledgeable docents.

  • Art Pepper

    GOP: 0
    Citizens: 1

  • nflfoghorn

    I think in his case
    moderate = not prone to immediately stick a “libtard” label on anyone who disagrees with you

  • formerlyjames

    Lame ducks? The only ones in this session are the Republican leadership. Thankfully. But I don’t even begin to understand their positions. Maybe just foretelling the next Congress, which is probably more likely to be really lame.

  • nflfoghorn

    Brown as Trojan horse??

  • 53_3

    Is he pulling wabbits out of hats or is his skills as a consensus-seeker coming to the fore?
    .
    I have a hunch that the theory that Obama can’t get things done is d.e.a.d. For him to have pulled this off has been instructive.

  • http://erieangel.wordpress.com erieangel

    I don’t get the excuse so many republicans have tried to use — that they shouldn’t be considering this in a lame duck congress. Why not? If they weren’t supposed to do anything after the election, the Congress would be out of session from election day until the first day of the next congressional session next year. They don’t get two months off, but it seems as if that’s what some have been arguing for.

  • nflfoghorn

    The authority of a LD congressman vanished after Nov. 2. Didn’t you get the memo??

  • akismet-8970f61dd51630cf920a41be8c8dc93b

    The media debate is in full swing about the President’s huge lame duck session, and what it will mean for his poll numbers. Now as we sit on the precipice of the START treaty ratification, I felt it was important to glance back in the history of this President and see why exactly we are here today. A kind of struggle through the white noise if you will:

    http://www.doubledutchpolitics.com/2010/12/for-obama-new-strategic-arms-reduction-treaty-is-start-of-legacy/

  • 53_3

    Looks to me like the teabaggers only have their tongue wrapped around their own cajones and not anyone else’s.
    .
    I guess that the GOP as a whole isn’t really listening en masse to the same “flute” player, they are, is it?
    .
    Maybe, just maybe, the teabaggers will find out that they really don’t have much chance of “licking” the opposition…

  • nflfoghorn

    Ailes and Luntz’ll think of a new lie. No worries.

  • 3xfire3

    IQ 53,
    .
    You and most of the Liberals on the Swamp are very ignorant about the Goals of The Tea Party Movement.
    The following are the mission Statement and Core Values of The Tea Party Group in my part of Ohio.
    .
    Your ignorant comments about the TPM doesn’t fit with their mission. If you read the following comments you will notice that they are being quite successful in meeting their goals. No one bats a 1,000 but they are batting about 800. That’s pretty good for a young and new organization.
    .
    Mission Statement
    .
    Our mission is to educate and mobilize our citizens to promote the core values of Constitutionally Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free Enterprise.
    .
    Core Values
    .
    Constitutionally Limited Government – We are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. Like the founders, we support states’ rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution, that the government is of the people, by the people and for the people and in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.
    .
    Fiscal Responsibility – Fiscal Responsibility by the government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it will subject its citizens to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. We believe the runaway deficit spending, as we now see in Washington D.C., and the increasing national debt are a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.
    .
    Free Enterprise – A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government’s interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.
    .
    As we moves forward, our goals are to increase voter education and participation. While we may work in cooperation with organizations focused on conservative social issues, our primary intent is to focus specifically on issues relating to taxation, government spending and monetary policy.

  • np042

    Constutionally limited government – as long as it doesn’t limit me (see gay marriage, etc)
    .
    Fiscal Responsibility – tax cuts for the rich
    .
    Free Enterprise – no regulation – see oil spill

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