Congressman Woodall Pulled the Wool on You

I was asked about a remark I wrote in last week’s column, “Congress pushing the dollar over a cliff.”

In it, I referenced the Iran Nuclear Review Act (HR1191) passed into law in May of 2015. I wrote that in September of 2015, congress engaged in what I termed, a “playfight,” a ruse ostensibly to stop Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. I wrote that although the Republicans in both houses seemed vehemently opposed to Obama’s deal with Iran, they were “all in on it.” So today, I’ll show you the ruse the Republicans, including 7th District US Representative Rob Woodall, pulled on the American people, and indeed the good people of Forsyth County. This is what they do, friends. And this is why they must be replaced.

In May 2015, HR1191 passed both houses of congress, quickly signed into law by Obama. In July, I caught an interview with Senator David Perdue in which he referenced congress having an opportunity to “disapprove” Obama’s deal after he signed it. To most people, that may have sounded reassuring. But to me it raised red flags. You see, it came out in the interview that to disapprove the deal, congress would have to override Obama’s veto of a “resolution of disapproval.” That seemed sort of backwards to me. I’m used to a president negotiating a deal and bringing it to congress for approval, not disapproval, which meant the deal was already approved, even as Perdue spoke. In this case, congress could review it and vote to disapprove it, but only in legislation that Obama would immediately veto. To really disapprove the deal, Congress would need a 2/3 majority to override Obama’s veto, and we all know that would never happen. That got me wondering how Obama received the authority to bind the US Government to a deal that congress would have no way to effectively disapprove. My curiosity led me to read HR1191, the Iran Nuclear Review Act.

 

There I discovered the ruse that Representative Woodall and virtually every Republican in both houses of congress pulled on the American people. You see, the Iranian sanctions Obama wished to remove were already in law, many carved in stone needing congressional approval to alter or remove. In that legislation, those punishments are termed, “statutory sanctions.” Until HR 1191 passed both houses and became law, Obama had no authority to sign any binding agreement with Iran whatsoever. Any agreement he might sign using presidential authority could not legally violate existing statutory sanctions and furthermore, could easily be reversed by a subsequent president.

The Iran Nuclear Review Act, portrayed to the American people as a mechanism by which the US Congress might prevent Obama from binding the US Government to an agreement that the American people were overwhelmingly against, set up a "heads Obama wins, tales Congress loses" rule in which Obama’s authority to bind the US Government was a foregone conclusion. Obama could not lose. The Republicans were in full charge of the language proposed in HR 1191. And that language removed any existing legal roadblocks preventing Obama from getting the Iran deal he wanted. Because the Republicans gave Obama the authority he asked for, but acted as if they disagreed with the deal they, themselves, authorized, we know that the Republicans in congress either (1) feigned disapproval of the Iran deal, or (2) are stupid.

Giving the Republicans just enough credit to rise above the level of “stupid,” we can only conclude that Republicans in congress wanted the “Iranian nuclear deal” just as much as Obama did. And to my knowledge, of the 25 House members who voted against HR 1191, such as 9th District US Congressman Doug Collins, none of them ever initiated a conversation with their constituents to explain how their fellow Republicans, such as Mr. Woodall, pulled the wool over their eyes. So in essence, they were all in on it to some degree…or, as I concede, are stupid. (No, we can’t fully rule that out.) 

In September of 2015, attending what was likely Representative Woodall’s last “in person” Forsyth County town hall meeting, I asked my congressman why he voted to give Obama the authority to sign the Iran deal. As I suspected he might, Woodall erred, claiming that Obama already had that authority and that HR 1191 was an effort to stop him from using it. Did you get that? Now if Obama already had all the authority he needed, why would he sign a bill that might stop him? Hmmm...Think about that one.

As my representative beat a hasty retreat toward the door, I clamored for an answer, which of course never came. I followed with an email clarifying the question, to which an answer never arrived. When I visited with him last February, I asked why I never received an answer. Rob said he remembered “personally writing” a response, so it must have been “lost in the mail.” I asked that he find that letter and resend it. Now, in August, what are the odds that both letters got “lost in the mail?”