The vote on cloture on the Corker-Menendez bill was 93-6; the final vote on the merits, 98-1. With that, the Senate rebuked the White House’s plan to avoid Congress entirely on a final Iran deal. If there is a final deal, at least President Obama will be barred from immediately lifting sanctions, will have to turn over the whole deal to lawmakers and will risk a resounding bipartisan “no” vote. It is not ideal, but only Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in the end made the perfect the enemy of the good to vote no on the merits. While Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Cotton were among the six voting no on cloture, Cruz wound up voting yes on the merits of a bill he co-sponsored and then called it a bad deal. Go figure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who initially raised two of the poison pill amendments, was clear-eyed enough to recognize when a good-enough bill deserves support. He voted for cloture and yes on the merits.

In remarks before the vote, White House nemesis Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) argued:

And despite the good intentions – and I will say the good intentions of many of the amendments, some which I agree with – we cannot risk a presidential veto and we cannot at the end of the day risk giving up Congressional review and judgment. That is the critical core issue before the Senate so we will have congressional review and judgment on probably the most significant nuclear nonproliferation national security, global security question, I think, of our time.

We cannot risk having no oversight role. And without the passage of this legislation, we will have missed an opportunity to send a clear message to Tehran. So as we near the finish line and hopefully agree to govern as we should, I believe we will ultimately pass legislation without destroying what Senator Corker and I carefully crafted and was passed unanimously out of the Committee.

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