Supporters claim the votes are there.
It is time for Congress to end the restrictions that for more than half a century have prevented most Americans from visiting Cuba, a bipartisan group of senators said Tuesday.
The lawmakers, at a news conference where they were joined by trade and human rights groups, also made clear that their proposal to allow travel should be a first step toward breaking down economic and trade barriers between the two countries.
The travel embargo, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat, is a "failed policy that has failed for 50 years." [...]
The Dorgan bill is co-sponsored by Richard Lugar, top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, among others. It would prevent the president from stopping travel to Cuba except in cases of war, imminent danger to public health or threats to the physical safety of U.S. travelers.
Reps. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat, and Jeff Flake, a Republican, have an identical bill in the House with 120 co-sponsors.
The Administration is expected to relax many of those restrictions ahead of an Organization of American States summit next month.
"Although the decision is not yet final, Obama is expected to further loosen remaining travel restrictions for all Americans by the time he goes to the April 17-19 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, senior administration officials said. Such restrictions were first imposed in 1961 and have been progressively tightened since then*. Removing all sanctions requires congressional action, but one senior official said that Treasury has wide leeway to ease the licensing requirements that limit travel."
But Obama is talking about ending the restrictions on family travel to Cuba, not all travel, like the Dorgan/Lugar bill would. While the administration proved it could win elections without Florida or its Cuban-American contingent, it will still be more risk averse on the issue than a Congress eager to end the failed embargo.
It's kind of weird seeing Amnesty International and the US Chamber of Commerce on the same side of any issue, but this one makes sense to everyone except a tiny bitter faction of (mostly ancient) Cuban American dead-enders. The practical effects should this bill pass, as expected?
Dorgan, who is the lead author of the unrestricted travel measure, said [Democratic Sen. and DSCC Chair Bob] Menendez and a small, bipartisan group of House hard-liners are fighting a losing battle. "It's sort of all over but the shouting, whether our country should maintain this embargo," Dorgan said.
I bet the embargo will be history by the end of Obama's first term.