McConnell to vote no on treaty

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Senate’s Republican leader said Sunday he would oppose a nuclear-arms treaty with Russia, complicating President Barack Obama’s drive to secure a foreign-policy victory in the final days of the post-election Congress. Senior Democrats still expressed confidence the Senate would ratify the accord and pushed for a showdown vote early this week.

The White House and Democrats are determined to win approval of the landmark treaty before January, when Republicans increase their numbers in the Senate, dimming its outlook. During a rare Sunday debate, Democrats beat back a GOP amendment to change the treaty, which would have effectively killed it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., set a vote for Tuesday to end the debate and move to a final vote.

Hours earlier, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dealt a blow to the administration’s hopes for strong bipartisan support, criticizing the treaty’s verification system and expressing concern that the pact would limit U.S. missile- defense options even though Obama insisted Saturday that the treaty imposes no restrictions on missile defense.

“Rushing it right before Christmas strikes me as trying to jam us,” McConnell said on CNN’s “State of the Union” a few hours before debate on the treaty resumed Sunday, the fifth day of consideration of the pact. “I think that was not the best way to get the support of people like me.”

Though McConnell’s opposition did not come as a surprise, proponents of the pact worried Sunday about how hard he would work to defeat the accord. Treaties require a two-thirds majority of those voting in the Senate, and Republican votes are critical to Obama’s success in getting the landmark agreement.

In response, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said, “We respect Senator McConnell’s view, but we were not surprised by it and certainly were not counting on his support to achieve Senate approval.”

Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the accord in April. It would limit each country’s strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550, down from the current ceiling of 2,200. It also would establish a system for monitoring and verification. U.S. weapons inspections ended a year ago with the expiration of a 1991 treaty.