If you’re Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, do you bring up a Hillary Rodham Clinton bill that has a direct bearing on one of the latest flashpoints in the Iraq debate?
Or do you skip all the headaches that would cause and settle for some really tough finger-wagging at the Bush administration?
It’s not an academic exercise, as you probably guessed. The latest argument between Congress and the White House is about a long-term security agreement the administration is negotiating with the Iraqi government that, among other things, would authorize U.S. troops to stay in Iraq beyond the end of this year.
This is an issue Clinton has latched onto with full force. She introduced a bill back in December that would force the Bush administration to get congressional approval for the agreement. And she brings it up every chance she gets – including Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq, where she grilled Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker about why the administration didn’t plan to submit the agreement to Congress.
Soon enough, Clinton could have a couple of chances to try to bring up her legislation on the Senate floor – if she wants to come off of the campaign trail long enough to do it.
The next supplemental spending bill for Iraq is supposed to come up in the Senate before the Memorial Day recess, as is the next defense authorization bill. Reid is eyeing both as vehicles for the Democrats’ next efforts to change Iraq policy, so either one could be a logical place to attach Clinton’s bill as an amendment.
Right now, Clinton’s measure could be considered as an amendment to one of those bills, but nothing more, according to a leadership aide. But that makes sense in some ways. Democratic leaders know they don’t have the votes to force President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq – you might have noticed that, too – so they’re looking for incremental changes that might have a greater chance of success.
Clinton’s bill fits in that general category, as it’s one or two pegs down from the main issue of withdrawing troops. But that doesn’t mean it would just fly through the Senate. Any bill sponsored by a presidential candidate can be an excuse for the other party to try to embarrass that candidate, through unfriendly amendments or just really mean speeches.
It’s the same reason Clinton’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, probably won’t get any further this year with his bill to punish deceptive election practices aimed at minority voters. It’s just too much of a can of worms.
Still, Clinton’s bill also speaks to larger issues. Other Democrats in Congress are annoyed about the long-term security agreement as well. This is in part because they see it as yet another example of the Bush administration stiff-arming congressional oversight, but also because they see it as tying the hands of the next president, who might well be a Democrat.
“You need to do much more than inform the Congress, you need the permission of the Congress if you’re going to bind the next president of the United States in anything you agree to,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware told Crocker during that committee’s hearing on Iraq Tuesday.
Now, Clinton and her Senate Democratic colleagues will have to decide what to do about it.
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Comments
Oh Clinton is at it again trying tO regain some semblance of a legislator. She has DONE NOTHING FOR NYS. HER RECORD IN THE SENATE IS TOTALLY LACKLUSTER.
Posted by: Skylark
| April 10, 2008 8:39 AM
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