Dear Friend,

Email your Senators today! Ask them to vote “YES” on the New START treaty.

Yesterday one of the most important votes of the 111^th Congress was held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – a strongly bipartisan, 14 – 4 vote that cleared  the way for the full Senate to ratify the New START treaty between the U.S. and Russia. The START treaty is an important step toward our overall goal of a nuclear-free future.

Now we need your help for the final push to ensure this modest but strategically critical treaty gets a vote before this Congress adjourns.

A BIG THANK YOU to AFSC supporters in Georgia, Tennessee and Mississippi who asked their Senators to do the right thing and vote yes on the New START Treaty resolution of ratification. With your help, Senators Bob Corker (TN) and Johnny Isakson (GA) joined their fellow Republican Richard Lugar (IN) and all the committee’s Democrats to create a clear bipartisan majority for the treaty. Well done!

The strength of this committee vote increases the likelihood that the measure can garner the 67 votes necessary to approve the treaty— if the full Senate has an opportunity to vote on the measure.  With some seeking to block this resolution from an up or down vote and elections fast approaching, the Senate could run out of time to advance this important agreement.

We need to ask for your help again. Urge your senators to publicly call for a vote before Congress adjourns in October, and to vote “yes” on the New START Treaty.

Many of us wish this treaty went further. When fully implemented, the U.S. and Russia will still have more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

But the treaty will make us safer by

– reducing the number of deployed nuclear weapons

– allowing U.S. inspectors to monitor Russian nuclear weapons, and

– clearing the way for additional steps away from nuclear proliferation – steps
that may be politically unviable for many years if this vote fails.

Please contact your Senators today and ask them to call publicly for a vote on the New START treaty.

To learn more see our New START treaty resource page, and the information compiled by our friends at FCNL.

Thank you for writing our government to take this important step for everyone’s safety.

Wage Peace,

Joseph Gerson
Disarmament Coordinator

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