Republican Warning.

Was the GOP's Iran letter really unprecedented?

From Reagan to Clinton, both Democrats and Republicans have tried to sabotage the other party’s foreign policy.

By MICHAEL CROWLEY
3/10/15 1:27 PM EDT

The senator was outraged. Congress had challenged the foreign policy of the president, ignoring that he is “the sole person to whom our Constitution gives the responsibility for conducting foreign relations.”
It was “an unconstitutional encroachment on the presidential prerogatives and power,” he fumed.

The words may sound like they come from a Capitol Hill Democrat, reacting to the Senate Republican letter to Iran’s leaders about their nuclear talks with President Obama. On Monday, Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement that those lawmakers were attempting to “undercut our President and circumvent our constitutional system.”

In fact, the angry speaker was Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah — reacting in 1987 to Congress’s passage of the Boland Amendment, cutting off U.S. aid to Nicaragua’s Contra rebels against the vehement wishes of President Ronald Reagan. (Some of those aides would ignore the ban, later producing the Iran-Contra scandal).

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/gop-iran-letter-115943.html#ixzz3U0QVRLDN


Unlike today's republicans, those democrats had some backbone.
 


I believe he is wrong on the international law aspect of it. That is the point of the letter. They will be making an agreement with Obama, not the United States. It is not a matter of domestic law being in conflict with international law. Obama's authority to enter a binding agreement is defined by the Constitution. The Constitution requires treaties to be ratified by the Senate.
 
NY Daily News Blasts GOP Senators Over Iran Letter, Calling Them 'Traitors'


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Daily news- "We strenuously condemn their (GOP) betrayal of the U.S. Constitutional system."

Where the F was their dissatisfaction the last six years while Obama was wiping his ass with the constitution????
 
Two things are clear here. One, the Constitution grants exclusive authority to the Executive branch to negotiate treaties. Two, treaties have to be ratified by the Senate.

Obama is ignoring the second part. It is similar to what Clinton did with an earlier global warming treaty. He agreed to it and never submitted it to the Senate. The Senate voted overwhelmingly anyway to reject it.

Obama is making a big mistake by excluding the Senate. First, he invites unfortunate episodes like the Netanyahu speech, which in fairness was an infringement by congress on Obama's authority. Or, this letter, which again is an encroachment onto exclusive Executive Branch territory. Second, he puts himself on the hook with full responsibility instead of sharing it with the Senate. Third, he makes any agreement politically toxic for a republican president to observe.
Very well stated!
 
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