Senate Reservations to Security Treaties

The constitution mandates that the Senate provide or withhold its advice and consent whenever the president wishes to implement an international treaty. Yet, the advice and consent process is a relatively underappreciated venue by which the Senate might advance its own policy initiatives. In this article, I examine senate consideration of security treaties from 1947 to 2000 to assess the degree to which the Senate inserted its own policy initiatives into treaty ratification documents. I find that treaty characteristics and the time period during which a treaty was before the Senate help explain when senators have enacted initiatives during the treaty process. Moreover, these initiatives were not limited to the treaty material itself, but covered everything from executive reports to the evolving division of powers to non germane programs. My theoretic and empirical discussion suggests a new method for measuring congressional activity vis-a-vis U.S. foreign policy.