Stop START? Ten New Senators Want Treaty Vote Delayed Until New Congress

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:  A group of ten newly-elected Republican senators today urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to wait until the new Congress convenes in January before considering the START nuclear weapons pact with Russia.  “Out of respect for our states’ voters, we believe it would be improper for the Senate to consider the New START Treaty or any other treaty in a lame duck session prior to January 3, 2011,” the ten future GOP senators said in a letter to Reid.  Reid and a slew of other Senate Democrats, as well as President Obama, want to ratify the pact before the new Congress kicks off next year. Once January rolls around, the Democrats’ majority in the Senate will shrink by six seats, a big blow to the treaty’s possible ratification since 67 votes are needed in the Senate to pass it.  Thus far, Republicans have resisted Democrats’ efforts to round up support for the pact, with the chamber’s number-two Republican Jon Kyl voicing doubts earlier this week that the Senate can pass it during the lame-duck. Now the newly-elected Republicans – a group that includes Roy Blunt of Missouri, John Boozman of Arkansas, Rob Portman of Ohio, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Marco Rubio of Florida – want Reid to wait.  “Proponents of this treaty, aware that today’s Senate is likely to support the agreement in higher numbers without our participation, are urging the Senate to give its advice and consent in the coming weeks,” the newly-elected senators said to Reid. “We call on you to defer action on this arms control treaty until the Senate reconvenes in the 112th Congress and we are able to participate fully and in an informed manner in its deliberations on New START.”  On Wednesday Reid said it was “vitally important for America’s national security” to ratify the treaty during the lame-duck, only hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Capitol Hill to push lawmakers to take action.  “For anyone to think we can postpone it or we can avoid it is, I’m afraid, vastly underestimating the continuing threat that is posed to our country,” Clinton said, vowing that “we will do whatever it takes, literally around the clock.”  Clinton’s visit was part of a new push by the administration to get the Senate to move on the treaty in the short amount of time remaining in the current Congress.  Last week President Obama said ratifying the pact was his top foreign policy priority for the remainder of the year. And this morning the President is attending a meeting on the treaty hosted by Vice President Biden. The meeting will be attended by Clinton, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, the panel’s top Republican Richard Lugar – who supports the treaty, a trio of former Secretaries of State, and two former Secretaries of Defense, among others.