Obama wants new START treaty ratified before the election

President Barack Obama said this weekend that he wants a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia ratified before November's elections.

The president said he soon planned to submit to the Senate the language of the treaty he signed with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in late March.

"Well, I’d like to see it happen before the election," Obama told Channel Rossiya, a Russian television station, in an interview this week, a transcript of which was released on Saturday.

But while the president said he hopes for swift Senate action, senators in both parties have said that it would be difficult to get through the treaty this year, and that the 67 votes necessary to ratify an agreement would be difficult.

"Obviously it’s technical and I think it’s appropriate for the Senate to examine it, but we’re going to be putting forward the text of the treaty, the annexes, all the necessary materials before the Senate in short order," Obama said.

That timeline also contrasts with a busy Senate calendar the rest of this year, with senators hoping to wrap up work on Wall Street reform legislation in the next week, and with an energy bill, immigration reform, and a Supreme Court nomination vote on the horizon.

The president said he hoped for the Senate to work quickly on ratifying the treaty.

"Our hope is, is that they will be able to review it quickly and recognize that this is an important step in the efforts of both the United States and Russia to meet our obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to lower our stockpiles, at the same time as we work together to hold other countries accountable on obligations regarding the Non-Proliferation Treaty," he said.