The third time wasn't the charm for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on his Iran agreement disapproval resolution, not by a long shot. For the third time, Senate Democrats blocked the resolution with a vote of
56-42. Not only did McConnell's
tactic of trying to set up Democrats with "painful" political revotes fail, with no Democrat changing positions, it backfired. In addition to the disapproval resolution, he set up a vote on Thursday that he really thought would be a gotcha for Democrats.
It wasn't.
Senators voted 53-45 on an amendment from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would have prevented President Obama from lifting sanctions on Iran until the country releases American prisoners and publicly recognizes Israel's right to exist. Sixty votes were needed to move forward. […]
While the amendment vote Thursday was intended to be politically tough for Democrats, the 42 Dems who are in favor of the Iran deal voted against the Republican leader's amendment.
Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who are among a small group of Democrats who oppose the Iran deal, also joined supporters in voting "no." […]
[H]is tactics drew pushback from his fellow Republicans.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said that while he supports releasing hostages and Iran supporting Israel, "should a whole agreement be based on those two items? No."
It would appear that McConnell has finally given up on Iran. Does that mean he's actually going to get down to the critical business of the waning days of the month—figuring out a continuing resolution to keep the government operating beginning in the new fiscal year, October 1? Of course not. The Senate will not be in session on Friday, and when they return on Monday, they'll be debating an
unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban. The cloture vote on that is set for Tuesday, and Democrats will block it. Who knows how many times next week McConnell is going to make them take that vote over and over.