Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) plans to force senators to vote on the State Department’s approval of $700 million worth of fighter jets to Pakistan using an obscure Senate rule that hasn’t been invoked in decades.
>The Obama administration cleared the sale of eight F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan last month. But Paul is invoking the obscure Arms Export Control Act of 1976 in a bid to shoot down the sale with a resolution of disapproval.
>"Over the last few years we have seen that Pakistan is an uncertain ally when it comes to cooperating with the United States,” Paul said in a statement. “As I travel in Kentucky, I meet countless individuals who are struggling to survive in this economy, we have no business sending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas."
>The last time the Senate voted on such a resolution, according to Paul’s aides, was in 1986, when then-Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) forced a roll call on banning sales of certain missiles and defense services to Saudi Arabia.
>Paul introduced the resolution that would block the sale of the F-16 aircraft to Pakistan on Feb. 25, two weeks after the administration announced it had approved the potential sale.
>The junior Kentucky senator is using a little-known provision in the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 that allows any member of the Senate to secure a floor vote to disapprove an arms sale. Under the law, the senator must introduce a resolution of disapproval, and then wait 10 days for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to act on the measure, according to the Congressional Research Service.
>If the committee doesn’t take up the measure after 10 days, the senator can move to discharge that resolution from the committee with a floor vote. That vote is primarily procedural, and not necessarily an up-or-down vote on the resolution’s merits.
>One senior Republican said it was likely that Paul would get such a vote on the floor sometime before the next recess, which begins the week of March 21, in between other Senate business.