WASHINGTON — The Senate has failed to ratify an international treaty intended to protect the rights of those with disabilities, as a bloc of conservatives opposed the treaty believing it could interfere with U.S. law.
The Senate voted 61 to 38 to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, a tally that fell short of the two-thirds needed to sign on to an international treaty.
The 2006 treaty, which forbids discrimination of the disabled, has enjoyed bipartisan support. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the treaty would encourage other nations to develop the kind of protections the United States adopted 22 years ago with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The international treaty’s thrust, he said, was a message: “Be more like us.”
But the treaty has split Republicans. Among its most vocal supporters were Republican war veterans, including President George H.W. Bush and former senator Bob Dole, who was injured in World War II and made a rare return to the Senate floor Tuesday to observe the vote and lend his stature.
Other conservatives were deeply suspicious of the United Nations, which would oversee treaty obligations. Those who opposed the treaty included former senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, the father of a developmentally disabled child who had traveled to Capitol Hill last week to encourage fellow Republicans to vote no.
He and other conservatives argued that the treaty could relinquish U.S. sovereignty to a U.N. committee charged with overseeing a ban on discrimination and determining how the disabled, including children, should be treated. They particularly worried that the committee could violate the rights of parents who choose to home school their disabled children.
“This is a direct assault on us,” Santorum said.
Nations that have signed on to the treaty include China, Iran and Syria. Opponents said that American approval might give the impression that the United States accepts how those nations treat their disabled citizens.
“The hard reality is that there are nation-states, like China, who do like to sign up to these organizations and gain the reputation for doing good things while, in fact, not doing good things,” said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
Supporters dismissed those fears as paranoid, noting that the treaty would change nothing in U.S. law without further approval from Congress.
“With these provisions, the United States can join the convention as an expression — an expression — of our leadership on disability rights without ceding any of our ability to decide for ourselves how best to address those issues in our law,” said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.
The risk of rejection grew after Santorum and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, announced that they had gathered the signatures of 36 fellow Republicans on a letter opposing the adoption of the measure during this month’s lame-duck session.
But its proponents had pushed forward in hopes of peeling off a handful of Republican opponents. Senators were greeted this week near their basement subway by veterans and others in wheelchairs who pushed for support.
In deference to the solemnity of the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked that senators cast their votes while seated at their desks — a rare move to observe the chamber’s formal rules that require each senator to respond to the clerk’s announcement of their name with an “aye” or “no.”
In practice, senators usually vote by giving a signal to the clerk — sometimes a thumbs up or down.
Thumbs up or down? Where have we seen that before?
He and other conservatives argued that the treaty could relinquish U.S. sovereignty to a U.N. committee….“This is a direct assault on us,” Santorum said.”
Guys, if you want your party to have a future, you need to stop listening to people like Santorum.
And listen to who instead? The GOP has abandoned moderates as evidenced by the clown car of a primary last spring.
The GOP are JUST bat crap crazy!!! Paranoia is their name..My god they can come up with the craziest reasons to OPPOSE ANYTHING that is ‘good’ .It is clear they are stlll controlled by the crazy and paranoid,—those who belong in their caves and cabins deep in the woods( with their guns) .because they NEED to live in isolation away from the BIGGER society because their views are so OUT there and bizzarro. It’s become like mass “party ‘ hysteria “. So how did Collins vote??
The GOP leaders have become so isolated from the rest of society, they haven’t a clue what normal is anymore . They hang with the rich and the crazies. Thankfuilly there aren’t enough of either of them to get them elected. This is like Alice falling into the rabbit hole and having a major hallucination.. Their “justification” is bizarro..
I actually heard one GOP guy say OUT loud on the news the reason the R’s lost was because the “underclass” ( yup he actually used that word) making less then $50,000 ( yup his description of the “under class”) in the urban center showed up to vote.. YUP according to him they were PULLED from their apartments and ( dared to) showed up to vote.. And the R party didn’t expect that. They didn’t “expect ” hard working Americans to SHOW UP. to vote !!??!! Can you imagine that?? Yup they lost because Americans dared to show up to vote!!! That tells you something doesn’t it.?
Well Lord knows, thru R governors , the GOP did try to do all they could to make sure they wouldn’t ‘show up to vote” with their attacks on voters and trying to suppress their votes
Hey GOP guy ..The median income in America is $45,000. which means 50% of Americans make LESS then that. and they don’t consider themselves to be the ‘underclass” They earn their money the AMERICAN way thru HARD WORK ( not investment) . Heck 50 -70% of them even own homes!!
They really believe “the 47% is garbage” stuff that Romney tossed around . Well in this case the “underclass ” and 47% were constituents and VOTERS and they tossed your keistas OUT .
You really need a job. Good luck with that.
PS – it wasn’t the underclass, it was the ignorant class. Romney won with the educated class and the wisdom class. Obama won the racist vote (blacks) and the naive vote (people 18 to 30). The independents and whites who voted for Romney were not enough to overcome these demographics.
Obama also won with women, hispanics, singles, 18-44 year olds, Catholics, Jews, post-graduate degree holders, and those making under $50,000 per year.
Rich white male protestants and their hillbilly water carriers were not enough to overcome these demographics.
You’re lying. Obama got about the same white vote as Democrats always get — he got the exact percentage of white votes that Clinton got. Obama won the “educated” vote actually. Don’t peddle your misinformation, people aren’t that stupid.
Trying for the wild hyperbole award? You’re the front runner.
I’m surprised that the Republicans did not support this, including the troops and cruise missiles to back it up. After all, this is a move to force the unwashed heathen furriners to obey American Values. We’ve been living with the ADA for decades.
typical liberal crap.feel good politics.”look what we signed onto” “see how much we care”.useless paper from the U.N. They had Libya on their human rights commission and allowed blue helmet troops to rape their way across parts of africa,stood by while atrocities were committed in the balkins…..Left Syria when things got hot,now we, the U.S., are preparing to prevent genocide when assad deploys chemical weapons on his own citizens,I am sure the libs will give a heartfelt thank you for the 20 or so observers they will send to make sure the americans don’t violate any rules of war while fighting the dictators thug/terrorists
Typical right wing paranoia — like this would really turn over sovereignty to the UN.
read into my comment what you like.i said it was feel good crap,nothing about giving away american sovereignty,then pointed out what a failure the U.N. is
But that’s not why they voted against it.
Thanks for supporting Obama’s foreign policy.
With the increasing number of disabled military vet’s coming home, and now getting a good, up close, look at the suppossed ‘vet friendly’ GOP, it is an almost guaranteed fact that the next election, in 2014, the GOP is gonna get it’s clock cleaned when the GOP, at both the State level and the National level, get their voting record’s examined. This treaty would not leave the U.S. open to any type of sovereignty issue and the GOP knows it. What is so sad, and is going to be remembered, is that the GOP smacked, deliberatly and in the mouth for all to see, the disabled, from children to the returning vet’s, all out of some kind of political theatrical script just so they could look good to some nut fringe of the GOP / Tea Party. The disabled vote. So do veteran’s, more so than the GOP would think and are about to find out ! Romney screwed himself with his 47% remark. How many, by percentage, of the disabled are going to see themselves in the same boat in 2014 and decide ‘enough is enough’ and throw the GOP under whatever bus they can find and come out and vote in drove’s ? The GOP just managed to unleash a previously ignored bloc of voter’s, get them severely angered, all at the same time and at the same time give the Democrat’s a new bloc of voter’s that are now more than ready to come out and run against the GOP on a civil and human rights issue that they should have left alone. At the rate this is going the GOP might as well have their next covention on the Titanic 2 ’cause the odd’s are rapidly looking the same for a safe docking.
Just what we need, more UN control over the lives of Americans. Haven’t we learned our lesson from the Americans with Disabilities Act? Just go into any older city in Maine and look up. You will see vacant buildings rendered useless by the ADA.
Those buildings are rendered useless by the building codes. Single exit fire-traps. A lot of them have had pigeons roosting in the upper floors for decades, long before the ADA.
In this situation, we already have the standard, and quite simply, some of the other countries signing onto this treaty are doing so for the positive international press and have little intent of actually holding themselves to that standard.
The problem is that the UN is about trying to create these international treaties, and unless they are ruled by international law (which can mean infringing upon our sovereignty as a country), they are nothing more than propaganda pieces. If you develop standards that actually require countries to first show meeting those standards before getting the positive publicity from it, then you might actually get somewhere, and you don’t need to even deal with international law aspects.
Clearly you want it both ways. Any worthwhile treaty with teeth infringes on sovereignty. (Conventions against torture, land mines, war crimes, etc…)
If the Senate Republicans who voted against this bill cared about the disabled internationally, they’d have voted for it. They don’t, so they didn’t.
Convoluted arguments like yours and Jon Kyl’s that try and tie the no vote to some belief that it would support Chinese propaganda do nothing but support the fact that the GOP is mad.
Any treaty with teeth does infringe upon sovereignty, especially when it has distinct forced consequences. As a result, for those countries who signed onto this treaty for the publicity, if they felt consequences for not holding up their end, they would more likely remove themselves from the treaty and possibly the UN, and declare that the UN has no right to force them to do anything.
In this same way, if you give the UN too much power over this country, by giving them teeth let’s say, then small countries will be given the opportunity to create international laws that can specifically target the United States and wealthier countries for their benefit. Let’s use for example, a consumption tax based on per capita consumption with the money being spread based upon population. 3rd world countries would love such a tax because it would be a transfer of wealth, not on based on merit, but based upon others who desire wealth without needing to work for it. Think about it this way, we’d and a few other nations be the one percenters and the rest of the world would be the 99%.
And most of all, when it comes to international treaties, the US is pretty good about holding up their end of the bargain, much more than many other less reputable countries. As a result, some countries would find a benefit from creating expensive policies knowing that they will create ways of hiding any of those activities and know that the US will not hide from it.
And the Republicans are a mess, and they do need a complete overhaul of many of their policies and leadership, but I’m not going to jump on the feel good parade and ignore blatantly obvious issues related to UN treaties and the UN in general. Just think about a new government made up of all the Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and Harry Reids of the world and tell me that you aren’t just a little scared about allowing an international government to form, a government that would start out with small infringements into the sovereignty of the member nations, and eventually working toward a complete power grab.
Call it conspiracy, but it’s tough to argue against it when throughout history there has been a move from local governments to centralized power in a larger government.
Unless your mind is full of Santorum, this particular treaty does not infringe upon US sovereignty. The Kyoto protocols are only one type of international agreement. The examples of land mines, war crimes, torture, and the disabled do not involve any “wealth transfer”. How the Chinese benefit from signing this treaty then violating it is beyond my power of spin. How the U.S. is economically disadvantaged is also beyond me since the ADA has been in effect for 20 years. As for U.S. history honoring treaties, don’t let Indian treaties cloud your statistics or anyone tortured in the past decade.
While yes, the nutty Santorum types of the GOP just makes one shake their head with their delusional nonsense, it is after all a rather hollow gesture…so not worth getting particularly worked up about.
PATHETIC
U. S. is not U.N. Anything brought about by the UN is an attempt to control our sovereignty, and therefore, to control our freedoms. Thank God for the Senate GOP. I don’t know how much longer we can last as an independent nation.
Sure. The Convention Against Torture is an attempt to control our freedom to torture.