Sneaking It Through: Senator Mike Lee stops another zero-warning attempt to pass the UNCRPD

It was one of those things where you can tell, very obviously, that God is in control.

At about 12:43pm today, I happened to be checking my email when the subject line of one I'd already opened -- but apparently hadn't read -- caught my eye.  It was an email update from the USICD, a leading proponent of the dangerous United Nations CRPD treaty:

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I scanned the email, which was a special alert that Senator Tom Harkin, a retiring Democrat from Iowa, was going to be asking for unanimous consent to pass the CRPD treaty today. 

I scrolled farther down, and it listed a C-SPAN link as well as the time that Senator Harkin would be requesting the unanimous consent motion: 12:45pm ET.  I looked at the clock: it was 12:44pm. 

By the time I had sent off several rushed tweets to key allies in the fight against the CRPD, who later said they also received essentially zero warning, and got C-SPAN up and running, Senator Harkin was already beginning his request.  He requested that the Senate bring the treaty up for a vote later today, after only two hours of debate.  The unanimous consent request is a method of passing a motion -- in this case, the motion to vote later today on CRPD after two hours of debate -- without requiring a vote.  If no Senator objects to the motion, it passes.

A similar stunt was attempted back in 2012, and Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, objected to the motion and stopped the treaty from being passed.  I was hoping and praying that Senator Lee or one of his conservative colleagues and allies would be on the Senate floor now -- which, in the limited view the camera provided behind Sen. Harkin, looked nearly completely deserted.

Thankfully, after the President Pro-Tempore of the Senate accepted the request and asked if there were any objections, Senator Lee spoke up.  Indeed, he was there!  He objected to the motion, noting that this treaty is a serious and controversial measure which should, at the very least, require more than two hours of debate.

The advance of the CRPD has been stopped -- for now.  Like RejectCRPD on Facebook, follow @RejectCRPD on Twitter, and tweet using the hashtag #RejectCRPD to stay updated.  And most importantly, continue praying that our leaders would do the right thing, as well as be in the right place at the right time.