Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

McGovern, Kerry tackle the Cold War

The Boston Globe

When this nation’s founders devised a national legislature, they created two chambers: the House and Senate. Representatives from local jurisdictions would advance more parochial needs; senators would focus on broader strategic issues. The notion of internal checks and balances within the legislative branch itself helped to seal ratification of the Constitution; the House and Senate would work together as well as at cross-purposes.

What wasn’t likely envisioned was that, hundreds of years later, one senator and one congressman from an original colony would serve as counterweights in a debate that involved the Cold War, Jewish immigration, multibillion-dollar companies, and a Russian lawyer who died in his jail cell. Just a few miles apart geographically, with motivations reflecting their conscience as well as status, Massachusetts’ Senator John Kerry and Representative Jim McGovern are key actors in an episode that is as much about constitutional architecture as it is modern day realpolitik.

A vote expected in the Senate on Thursday would grant normalized trade relations with Russia and finally end the Cold War. The bill, after last month’s similar vote in the House, would revoke the 1974 ban, known as Jackson-Vanik, that penalized US-Russian economic investments because of the Soviet Union’s prohibition on emigration for Jews. Times have changed, as have global markets, and the expected Senate approval would create a permanent normal trade relationship with Russia. All this activity is in response to Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization last August, essentially setting ground rules for foreign access to Russian industries and lowering any import tariffs; the United States doesn’t want to be left behind.