Will Scott Brown's Election Block START Ratification?

By John K. Warden

After Republican Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday, speculation began about the fate of all parts of Obama’s agenda.  Is health care dead?  Will the House just pass the Senate’s version of the bill?  What does Brown’s election mean for cap and trade legislation or comprehensive immigration reform?

In the middle of all that, there was also a prediction about how Brown’s election would impact Obama’s arms control agenda.  John Bennett, writing in Defense News, reported that Brown’s election might hurt the chances of the Senate ratifying a new START:

Massachusetts Republican state Sen. Scott Brown's stunning Jan. 19 victory in a special U.S. Senate election will complicate the Obama administration's efforts to finalize a nuclear accord with Moscow, a senior Pentagon official says.
The wide-reaching nuclear treaty would, if the two sides iron out a few remaining wrinkles, require U.S. Senate approval. And that means, as with other treaties, 67 senators would have to approve the new START pact.
Getting to 67 votes got more difficult when Brown captured the Senate seat occupied for decades by the late Democrat Edward Kennedy. The win will reduce the Democrats' majority in the chamber to 59 seats.
"Sixty-seven is many, many more than 60," Michael Nacht, assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs, said at a Jan. 20 conference in Washington. "And it's even more than 59."

While it's difficult to argue with the basic argument -- replacing a Democratic Senator with a Republican Senator does require an additional Republican vote for ratification, I disagree with the conclusion -- that Scott Brown joining the Senate makes it more difficult for Obama to get START ratified.

Unlike health care, cap and trade, and immigration reform, Republican votes were going to be required to get START ratified even before Brown's election.  Holding the party line was never a realistic strategy.  Instead, the Administration has to create a bipartisan consensus that this treaty is in America's national interest.

As I wrote a couple days ago, one of the keys will be the President's budget.  Republicans have tied START ratification to stockpile modernization and increased funding for the nuclear weapons complex.  All indications are that the Administration's request will include most of the funding Republicans are looking for, which should increase the chance that START is ratified (if negotiations ever finish...).

If history is any indication, the START vote might not even be on party-lines.  Amy Woolf, a specialist in nuclear weapons policy at the Congressional Research Service said, "Historically, strategic [arms control] votes haven't broken purely on party lines." and later added that they "have attracted lots of [Republican] votes."  However, Woolf acknowledged that most previous strategic arms control treaties were negotiated by Republicans.

It's also unclear how Scott Brown specifically will vote on START. Reacting to the Defense News article, Josh Rogin, author of The Cable, said that the "GOP will probably support START in the end and I don't think Brown has commented yet anyhow."

When the Senate is presented with a new START, ratification remains likely.