Senate Has Votes to Ratify START Treaty: Democrats Expect Debate This Week

The Senate has the votes to ratify the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, Democratic sources told Politics Daily on Monday. The debate is expected to start in the Senate as soon as Wednesday.

At a Tuesday caucus, Senate Democratic leaders are expected to tell members a ratification debate and vote will take place because they're confident the 67 votes will be there -- that they are not calling the measure as a symbolic exercise. Passing the New START treaty has been one of President Barack Obama's top priorities and at least nine Republicans are needed for the supermajority required for ratifying a treaty.

The sequencing of votes for START and a financing measure to keep government running is fluid, with time running out in the lame-duck session.

As of Monday evening, the Senate Democratic leaders were poised to finish the tax-package legislation Tuesday or Wednesday. The package -- a controversial compromise negotiated between Obama and Republicans to continue Bush-era tax cuts, extend unemployment insurance, give estate tax breaks and shave for a year payroll taxes -- cleared a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Monday with 83 votes for and 15 against. Sixty votes were needed to avoid a filibuster threat. The tax package still has to survive a House vote.

Republican leaders would prefer that after the tax-package vote, the Senate takes up voting on a continuing resolution to provide financing for the federal government into the new year. An issue is whether the resolution should run to October or just February. There is pressure to vote on the financing bill since funding runs out as of 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

On Nov. 29, all 42 GOP senators signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stating that they wanted to first pass the tax and government-spending bills before voting on any other matters. There is a loophole in the letter, however, that would let GOP senators vote to ratify START even if the government financing measure is not done. The letter states that the GOP senators would not vote "to invoke cloture" -- a procedure to make a bill filibuster-proof -- on any legislative item "until the Senate has acted" on the tax and spending measures. The loophole: Ratifying a treaty does not need a cloture vote.