This was a vote on an amendment by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) that would have required additional inspections of nuclear weapons facilities. The amendment was offered to a nuclear weapons reduction treaty known as the “New START”agreement. This treaty was strongly supported by the Obama administration, and limited the number of warheads the U.S. and Russia could maintain in their nuclear arsenals to 1,550.

Inhofe urged support for his amendment, arguing that additional inspections were necessary because the Russian government had never been honest with respect to disclosures about its weapons systems: “I think we can say Russia has essentially violated every arms control treaty we have had with them in the past. The State Department this year submitted a report on foreign country compliance with their arms control measures…. I guess what we can say is, we know one thing and nobody seems to disagree with this: Russia cheats.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) urged opposition to Inhofe’s amendment. While he voiced support for the amendment’s goals, he contended that any change to the New Start treaty would kill the agreement since the Russian government would not agree to any new negotiations: “I am 100 percent prepared to try to embrace this concept [of Inhofe’s amendment]…But we cannot do it in a way that requires this treaty to go back and be renegotiated. This is not a complicated amendment. There is a very simple reason why we should oppose this amendment as it is: because of the requirement that we go back.… That is as plain as day. Every negotiator, everybody who has been part of this process, understands that.”

The Senate rejected this amendment by a vote of 33-64. Voting “yea” were 33 Republicans. All 56 Democrats present and 8 Republicans voted “nay.” As a result, the Senate rejected an amendment (to a nuclear weapons reduction treaty) that would have required additional inspections of nuclear weapons facilities.