Surprise! U.S. states ‘can reject Iran deal’

Surprise! U.S. states 'can reject Iran deal'

Report: Cruz precedent throws wrench in Obama's agreement

Published: 07/22/2015 at 5:27 PM

Bob Unruh 

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

A court precedent obtained by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, when he was the Texas solicitor general could throw a wrench in the Obama administration’s plan to relieve Iran of the economic sanctions that have been used to curb its nuclear ambitions. It seems, according to Breitbart’s Big Government, the individual states are not required to adopt the position that Obama advocates.

According to the report, the 2008 Medellin v. Texas case settled constitutional law stipulating that U.S. states “cannot be forced to comply with international treaties unless Congress has passed statutes giving them effect.”
And, the report from Joel Pollak said, the deal provides: “If a law at the state or local level in the United States is preventing the implementation of the sanctions lifting as specified in this JCPOA, the United States will take appropriate steps, taking into account all available authorities, with a view to achieving such implementation. The United States will actively encourage officials at the state or local level to take into account the changes in the U.S. policy reflected in the lifting of sanctions under this JCPOA and to refrain from actions inconsistent with this change in policy.”
Pollak said that fact may come as a surprise.
“States and local governments do not play much of a role in foreign policy. However, they cannot be forced to implement an international treaty or agreement that is not self-executing – i.e., one whose implementation requires new congressional laws.”
The issue is that while Congress may not be able to stop the adoption of the Iranian deal sought by President Obama and negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, it is unlikely to be eager to accommodate Obama and provide him with legislation that may be needed to implement the deal.
The Obama administration has forwarded the agreement to Congress for a designated 60-day review period. But it already has submitted it to the U.N. Security Council, which quickly gave approval.
That maneuver left Congress in a poor negotiating position. For one thing, Congress already had approved a plan to require a two-thirds vote to reject the bill, effectively a veto override majority.
Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh explained the details of the legislative process, noting it is being controlled by the bill sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., which was supposed to allow Congress to review the nuclear agreement.
And it does that.
But it also turns on its head the process through which the U.S. adopts treaties. Although it’s not called a treaty, the Iran deal fits the definition: an agreement under international law entered into by sovereign states.
Treaties must be approved by a two-thirds vote in the U.S. Senate. But the Iran deal needs only one-third of the vote, meaning it would take a massive two-thirds vote to defeat it.
Limbaugh said it marked “the official loss of United States sovereignty.”
“And by that I mean the United Nations Security Council has endorsed the United States and the other five nations involved in this Iran nuclear deal before the United States Congress has weighed in,” he said.
But no matter the congressional vote for or against the overall deal, the Big Government report said local governments “can refuse to comply.”
It was the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled, for then-Texas Solicitor General Cruz, that states don’t have to take active steps to make changes to their actions.
“The ‘sanctions’ to which the deal refers are the array of divestment laws that have been passed in recent years to prevent pension funds and contractors from providing economic benefits to Iranian companies the Iranian regime. Thirty states have passed divestment laws, roughly a dozen have passed contracting restrictions, and some have passed supplemental legislation, such as a 2012 law passed in California that applies to the state’s insurance industry,” the report said.
New York, for example, maintains a blacklist of persons “determined to be engaged in investment activities in Iran.”
While Obama’s agreement lifts the federal sanctions against Iran, his deal doesn’t affect the state restrictions, the report said.
“The Iran deal obligates the federal government to take ‘appropriate steps’ to cancel state and local restrictions, and requires the government to refrain from further sanctions in the future. The truth is that the federal government has no constitutional authority to do so,” the report said. “Divestment laws and contracting restrictions can remain in place at the state and local level until they are superseded by federal statute. The language of the Iran deal itself is not enough to constitute such statutory authority, even if the Iran deal does pass by failure to override Obama’s veto.”
In fact, “If the states want, they can add new sanctions and restrictions on Iran – perhaps to replace those that the federal government is lifting, such as restrictions on Iranian engineers studying nuclear technology at American universities,” the Big Government report said.
And it said that since the deal reveals Iran would treat new sanctions as a reason to halt its participation, “that leaves great power in the states’ hands to trigger the deal’s collapse.”
WND has reported two-thirds of the GOP members in the House already have signed onto a resolution opposing the deal.
Secretary of State John Kerry also has said that if Congress rejects the deal, it will free Iran from any “restraints” on its actions and will alienate American allies.
And he said if there’s no approval from Congress, it’s no big deal.
“I don’t think that undermines this deal. This deal will stand ultimately on the fact that there’s unprecedented inspection, unprecedented access, unprecedented restraint in their program, which they’ve agreed to,” Kerry said.
Andrew McCarthy wrote at National Review that the best solution is “to end the Kabuki theater.”
“The Corker bill and its ballyhooed 60-day review process that undermines the Constitution is a sideshow. If you scrutinize President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, you find that the president ignores the existence of the Corker process. So should Congress. Obama’s Iran deal also ignores the existence of Congress itself – at least, of the United States Congress,” he wrote.
He said the U.S. Constitution “is a nullity in the eyes and actions of this imperial White House.”
“Enough is enough – way beyond enough,” he wrote. “The Congress, particularly the Senate, has not only a clear justification but a constitutional duty to scrap the legally defective and, now, factually nigh-irrelevant Corker review process, codified as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/surprise-u-s-states-can-reject-iran-deal/#ujEOq2wfSQ2lqfcj.99