Congressional leaders scheduled a handful of votes Thursday afternoon on the Iran nuclear deal, part of a flurry of action on the Hill over the agreement on Thursday and Friday.
A Senate vote on overcoming a likely filibuster was set for Thursday afternoon, while the House is expected to vote on a resolution saying President Barack Obama violated the law by not submitting all details on the deal to Congress, which would pave the way for a lawsuit against the President.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi continued to express confidence Thursday that the Iran deal would be implemented later this month because Democrats on Capitol Hill have enough support to overcome Republican efforts to block it.
She called the President’s handling of the debate and efforts to get it through Congress “masterful” and “dazzling.”
“This is historic, this is grand, this is visionary, this is about peace. Some of our members are saying this is the first time since I’ve been here I’ve been able to vote for peace rather than against war,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, however, urged Senate Democrats not to filibuster a vote on the deal.
“What a tragedy it would be then if, at the very last moment, some of those same Senators decided to filibuster to prevent the American people from having a real say on this incredibly important issue,” McConnell said in a statement Thursday.
But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said that a vote on whether to end debate amounted to a vote on the deal itself.
“Let’s be clear about who is moving to end debate: it is the Republican leader and he alone who is moving to end debate. It is the Republican Leader who filed a procedural motion last night to end debate,” Reid said in a statement Thursday.
Earlier in the week, Conservatives in the House and Senate split with Republican leaders, whom they have accused of “showboating” on the issue. The maneuver led to the series of votes the House has scheduled to oppose the deal and to lay the groundwork for a lawsuit against Obama.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz fired off a last-gasp volley Thursday to McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner urging them block implementation of the deal. He also cautioned the nation’s bankers against releasing any frozen Iranian funds, which could make their way to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“If they release billions in funds to Khamenei, they risk billions in civil (and possibly even criminal) liability once President Obama leaves office,” Cruz wrote in a Sept. 10 letter to McConnell and Boehner.
It is highly unlikely that Republicans will succeed in blocking the deal outright — Democrats hold just enough votes in the Senate to block a vote and more than enough to sustain the veto President Barack Obama has promised for any measure against the deal. The fight instead has turned in large part to putting lawmakers on record with a series of tough votes on the issue.
Lawmakers are facing a Sept. 17 deadline for action before the deal automatically takes effect — 60 days from when the deal was presented to Congress — but even that deadline has been disputed by conservatives.