The House ended up voting on several different resolutions related to the nuclear deal yesterday and today. Today’s resolution expressing approval of the deal was voted down by a predictably wide margin (roll call here):

The Republican-led House went on record Friday against the Iran nuclear deal, but the symbolic vote will not stop President Barack Obama from implementing the agreement.

After three hours of hot-tempered debate, the House voted 269 to 162 to reject the deal.

The vote yesterday expressed the flawed complaint that the administration didn’t comply with the Corker-Cardin legislation. It’s an exceptionally weak argument, and one that shows how desperate deal opponents have become. It is not surprising that deal opponents rolled out this argument only when they realized that they lacked the votes in the Senate to pass a disapproval resolution. (A roll call for that vote can be found here.) Another vote today on a non-binding resolution “suspended” the president’s authority to waive sanctions, which will also amount to nothing (roll call for that vote here). The Senate is not taking up the measure, and obviously the president would never sign it even if they somehow passed it.

All of these were feeble protest votes in light of the failure of the deal’s opponents in the Senate to bring their disapproval resolution up for a vote. Nonetheless, some House Republicans imagine that they are going to be able to pursue a lawsuit against the administration over the alleged Corker-Cardin violations. Their case is very weak, and I doubt very much that any court is going to want to put itself in the middle of what is fundamentally a political dispute over foreign policy between the other two branches.

These were all largely party-line votes, and the large Republican majority ensured their easy passage or rejection. The sole exception on the Republican side was Rep. Thomas Massie, who voted present on the earlier vote today rather than voting for or against the deal. Unfortunately, not a single House Republican could bring himself to support a deal that advances the cause of nonproliferation, greatly reduces the likelihood of a war with Iran, and represents a major success for U.S. diplomacy. The entire Congressional GOP has expressed its loathing for the results of successful American diplomacy, which is one more reason why the party still can’t be trusted on foreign policy.