Sen. Bill Nelson won’t support Iran bill
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Wednesday he won’t support legislation that would let Congress weigh in on an Iran nuclear deal if the bill is brought up before talks are finished.
{mosads}Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that the Senate would debate a bill next week to require President Obama to submit any deal made with Iran to Congress. Obama would be blocked from lifting sanctions while lawmakers debate the agreement.
Negotiators are facing a March 24 deadline to reach a framework for a final agreement. Nelson said he was “assured” that the legislation wouldn’t come up until after that deadline.
“This senator was assured by the Republican sponsors of this bill that the bill would not come up until after the negotiations had concluded on March the 24th,” he said from the Senate floor. “Obviously, this senator would not have sponsored legislation that would try to predetermine or nix the negotiations before they had a chance to succeed.”
Nelson cautioned that, if the legislation is brought up before the negotiations finish, he will vote to block the proposal from being taken up.
“If this legislation is brought up before the negotiations conclude on March the 24th, this senator will not support the efforts to proceed to the consideration of the legislation here in front of the Senate,” he said.
Nelson said that he is one of the “strongest supporters of Israel” and wants to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but “it’s another thing … to make representations to a senator then that are not fulfilled, and this senator doesn’t like that one bit.”
Tuesday’s legislation is a duplicate of a bipartisan proposal introduced last week. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) suggested Tuesday that the original legislation could still be taken up by the full Senate if the Foreign Relations Committee is able to vote on it next week.
Nelson is the latest Democrat to disagree with McConnell’s move.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said Tuesday he was “outraged” by McConnell’s move, which he said shows that “we’re back to politics as usual.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
