Updated 2154 GMT (0454 HKT) September 11, 2015 | Video Source: CNN
Story highlights
- The effort was one of the most aggressive lobbying drives ever to take shape between Congressional Democratic leaders and the Obama White House.
- Democrats succeeded largely because the lobbying effort to back the deal was far more targeted and relentless than the campaigns aimed at scuttling it.
Washington (CNN)It
was late July and nerves at the White House were high. Sen. Chuck
Schumer, the New York Democrat, was widely expected to announce his
opposition to the Iran deal -- and dozens of other House and Senate
Democrats were threatening to revolt against the nuclear agreement and
deliver President Barack Obama a devastating blow on the international
stage.
But weeks before it would
become public, the White House won a critical assurance that would
dramatically change the outlook in Congress: Sen. Harry Reid would
support it.
In a private call, the
Senate Democratic leader secretly assured Secretary of State John Kerry
that he would back the deal, though he would keep quiet about it
publicly, Democratic sources said. He promised to help deliver critical
information about which Democrats to target -- but Reid himself needed
to let about a dozen friends, supporters and donors who were sharply
critical of the deal know why he was backing it before his position
became public.
What ensued was perhaps
the most aggressive and coordinated lobbying drive ever to take shape
between congressional Democratic leaders and the Obama White House --
which have frequently been at odds over strategy and tactics. It was a
strategy that focused exclusively on House and Senate Democrats,
ignoring Republicans altogether. And it underscored how sensitive the
deal was to a number of Democrats, who feared a sharp backlash from
pro-Israel voters and their Republican foes.
The
Democrats succeeded largely because the lobbying effort to back the
deal was far more targeted and relentless than the public push and
advertising campaigns aimed at scuttling it, according to lawmakers in
both parties. For a president often criticized for being detached from
Congress, Obama aggressively used his bully pulpit to win over his
party, contacting 125 Democratic House members and senators since July,
many of them repeatedly, according to Democratic sources.
Tennessee
Sen. Bob Corker, the GOP chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and an opponent of the deal, said his Democratic friends
reported to him that the White House was "breaking arms and legs" to
prevent Congress from voting down the deal. And it worked, culminating
in a Thursday victory where Senate Democrats filibustered a resolution
to reject the deal and House Democrats secured enough support to sustain
a veto, handing Obama the most far-reaching international achievement
of his presidency.
To quell a
Democratic uprising, the White House, Reid and House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi traded key intelligence about uneasy Democrats, dispatching
powerful Cabinet officials to lock down support. Over the August
recess, Pelosi gave the White House 57 names of House Democrats who were
wobbly on the Iran pact; Obama called all of them, including 30 calls
to Democratic lawmakers in between rounds of golf during his Martha's
Vineyard vacation, according to Democratic sources.
Senate
Minority Whip Dick Durbin called almost everyone in his 46-member
caucus, interrupting a family vacation in Oregon to lobby skittish
Democrats. On a jaunt to Florida last week where he talked about his
presidential ambitions, Vice President Joe Biden made a side trip to
help woo and eventually win over Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz,
an influential Jewish Democrat who was facing fierce protests, including
from some activists who charged that she should "go to the oven," a
reference to the Holocaust.
Senior
administration officials made 250 calls to House members and senators,
sources said. That includes Jack Lew, the Treasury secretary and an
Orthodox Jew, who was dispatched in part to help alleviate concerns of
Jewish lawmakers, and Kerry, a former senator who relied on his
longstanding Hill connections to push his party to back the deal.
Yet
it was Ernest Moniz, the Department of Energy secretary and a nuclear
physicist, who became the most prolific and effective surrogate,
lawmakers said.
Moniz headed to the
Detroit area to win over Michigan Sen. Gary Peters this summer. After
pro-Israel forces were ratcheting up oppositpion in Montana, Moniz laid
out his views to a local newspaper to help ensure Sen. Jon Tester didn't
defect. And he called into a North Dakota radio show to help give
political cover to Heidi Heitkamp, the state's centrist Democratic
senator.
Moniz was so influential that
the final Democrat who announced her support -- Washington Sen. Maria
Cantwell -- waited to return to Washington to meet with him to let him
reassure her about the capability of inspectors to continue to detect
nuclear activity in the country. He told them all that the deal cut off
Iran's pathways to building a nuclear bomb.
Reid
later privately mused about the possibility of nominating Moniz for the
Nobel Peace Prize, according to an aide familiar with the matter.
Numbers in Obama's favor
What
helped Obama and supporters was the fact that the congressional review
law only required the White House to prevent a veto-proof, two-thirds
majority from forming in each chamber. With 46 Senate Democrats and 188
House Democrats, that meant limiting defections to fewer than 13 in the
Senate and 42 in the House. On Thursday, just four Democrats voted to
break a filibuster in the Senate on a motion to disapprove of the Iran
deal, keeping the accord alive, with Pelosi's office announcing it had
enough support to sustain a potential veto.
Given
the more progressive bent in the House Democratic Caucus, the White
House always viewed the House as its firewall -- and spent ample
resources and time to ensure that the dam didn't break.
Soon
after the deal was announced in July, Pelosi announced her backing and
worked furiously with the White House to keep Democrats in line. Through
August, aides said, Pelosi was on the phone during trips across the
country, including in Napa Valley, California, and New Orleans at an
event recognizing the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, speaking
to every member of her caucus -- including some repeatedly.
Trump, Cruz and Palin slam Iran nuclear deal 05:37
Democrats
still raised major concerns -- namely over how Iranian nuclear sites
could be inspected, how other countries would react if the U.S. walked
away from the deal and whether rolling back sanctions against Iran would
empower the country and threaten Israel.
When
questions were raised, relevant Cabinet members would try to iron out
those concerns. And when the pressure from the President was needed, he
would intensify his lobbying.
Pelosi said Thursday that Obama knew the agreement so well he could teach a "masters class" on the topic.
She
relied heavily on the President and his team to deliver the key votes.
Soon after the deal was announced, Biden traveled to the House
Democratic Caucus to lobby his party behind it, followed by visits from
Moniz and Kerry. Then the White House focused heavily on small groups,
dispatching Wendy Sherman, an under secretary of state, to brief the
Congressional Black Caucus in late July.
Right
before the August recess, with fears that angry town hall meetings in
members' home states could shift the debate, Obama spent more than two
hours in the White House's Blue Room with two dozen House Democrats,
answering questions from skeptical members. In a meeting with 12 House
Democrats in late July who were leaning against the plan, Obama
convinced half of them to support it, aides said.
"This agreement is not perfect," Pelosi said Thursday. "But I never have seen a perfect anything."
The Senate strategy
Despite
losing the support of Schumer, an influential Jewish Democrat who
represents a staunchly pro-Israel constituency in New York, Democrats in
the Senate were not too concerned it would have a broader impact.
Schumer promised not to lobby Democrats to oppose the deal -- and
Democratic leaders took full advantage of that.
As
Reid and senior White House aides were coordinating on strategy, Durbin
was calling members of his caucus on his family trip to Oregon in
August.
"Wherever we are, we have to
do our work -- and he was on the phone with me and others the entire
time," Reid said Thursday as Durbin stood next to him.
Throughout
the recess, a number of Democrats who supported the deal ended up
meeting with fierce opponents in order to explain their line of
thinking.
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida
Democrat, ended up meeting with Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the
United States, in Miami. He talked with officials from the powerful
pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
including Holocaust survivors.
"It was one of the most respectful, friendly meetings," Nelson said.
Some
resisted the White House's help in order to show their independence
from a President whom senators said often expressed how important the
deal was to him personally.
"I never
talked to the President," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri
Democrat. "I got one call from (national security adviser) Susan Rice. I
told them, 'I don't want any calls from the administration, so leave me
alone.'"
McCaskill said she eventually
backed the deal after consulting with ambassadors of Asian countries
over what they would do with Iranian money they were holding if the
United States walked away from the agreement.
"Suffice it to say, I am for the agreement," she said.
Others
received attention from the President, among them Peters, the Michigan
Democrat, and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who faces a potentially
tough re-election next year.
Peters,
who traveled to the Middle East and discussed the nuclear deal with
officials there, also co-hosted Moniz in the Detroit-era to answer
questions from skeptical voters. He also spoke to Obama twice on the
phone, in addition to an Oval Office meeting.
"I
still have a lot of concerns," Peters said Wednesday, though he's
backing the deal because he believes there are no better options.
Privately,
Reid worked to ensure that Democrats would be prepared to filibuster
the deal -- something that infuriated Republicans who wanted a
straight-up-or-down vote so Obama would be forced to veto the resolution
of disapproval. But at a private lunch Wednesday, Reid convinced his
party to join in the filibuster, even as New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez
pushed back on that strategy.
Menendez
demonstrated that Obama couldn't win over all of his party. Like
Menendez and Schumer, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on
the Foreign Relations Committee, opposed the deal. And Sen. Joe Manchin
of West Virginia, who rarely speaks to the President, announced his
opposition after he heard strong criticism at town hall meetings in his
state.
The evening before Manchin
announced his opposition this week, the President called up the
conservative Democrat to get him to flip. Manchin, at home on his boat
parked at National Harbor in Maryland, wouldn't budge.
"He made his pitch, and I respect that," Manchin said. "I think he knew that I was in a different place."
"It's a no-brainer for him," he continued. "I said, 'Mr. President, I understand that.'"
In
the end, it wouldn't matter. Republicans fell two senators shy Thursday
of breaking a Democratic filibuster, which kept the Iran deal from even
coming up for a vote.
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