Marion Smith: Senate Needs START Negotiating Record
The Heritage Foundation’s Marion Smith wrote a Backgrounder titled, Remember the Jay Treaty: START Behaving Like Senators. Missile defense experts and others are concerned whether President Barack Obama compromised away our security when the U.S. and Russia negotiated the treaty. Several have called for the START negotiating record, which would set the record straight.
“There are well-founded concerns over the provisions in the New START Treaty and their implications for U.S. security.[2] Some Senators were surprised by reference to defensive anti-missile weapons in the treaty, since New START is supposed to address only offensive nuclear weapons. The implications of this treaty could affect the ability of the U.S. to deploy defensive missile systems and points to larger security issues that also involve potential threats emanating from Iran and North Korea. In an effort to better understand the provisions of this bilateral agreement, six Republican Senators formally requested the negotiating record of the New START Treaty from the Obama Administration on May 6, 2010.[3]
“At present, however, the Obama Administration and the Democrat Members of the Foreign Relations Committee have withheld access to this vital information. This denial is tantamount to refusing the Senate an honest debate and undermines the Senate’s role in providing advice and consent. For many on the Left, however, the lack of debate is not a problem since the virtues of arms control are assumed and any debate is viewed as divisive partisanship. But Senators and the American people should not accept this misunderstanding of the Senate’s function. Policy arguments are not disruptive to the legislative process; informed debate is essential to deliberation.”
Smith compares the present dilemma facing the Senate with that facing the Senate after the Revolutionary War. The Jay Treaty of 1794 addressed territorial disputes between the U.S. and Britain.
“The ratification of the Jay Treaty was an early test of separation of powers and of the Senate’s constitutionally mandated role in U.S. foreign policy…Although the Constitution grants the President the power to negotiate treaties and possess privileged diplomatic information, Jay also acknowledged that sometimes ‘useful intelligence’ pertaining to a treaty under consideration could be vital to the Senate’s function.[10] In keeping with this understanding, Washington had submitted to the Senate ‘all the papers affecting the negotiation with Great Britain” when Jay’s Treaty was ‘communicated for their consideration and advice.‘ [11] This privileged information provided the facts for the congressional debate that preceded a vote.”
Tags: Marion Smith, Russia, START