What the Media Forgot to Mention When Bob Toricelli Dropped Out of the Race for Senate
As the embargo against Cuba crumbles, the disgrace of Ex-Congress member Torricelli
is marked by mediamnesia about how he elevated himself from representative to
senator.
Toricelli's lower house constituency embraced Union City, N J. That had become, by 1992, a branch of embittered expatriate Miami emigre Cubans, dominated by a segment bitterly hostile to the Cuban Revolution.
In behalf of this segment of his district, Rep. Torricelli drafted (or accepted their draft of) a bill that more stringently tightened the embargo against Cuba that had previously been based on executive action. (That status, product of presidential fiat left the embargo more vulnerable to reconsideration and revocation.)
The Torricelli Bill (as it was widely known) was vetoed by then President Bush (the elder) on the ground that provisions with intended extraterritorial application, i.e. directed against other nations and their nationals, would violate International Law.
During the 1992 campaign, Bush vs. Clinton, Torricelli and the leaders of the Miami hardliners, persuaded candidate Clinton to announce that if he were elected, he would sign the Torricelli Bill. At about this time, reportedly, a six-figure sum was given to Clinton at a Florida campaign stop by Jorge Mas Canosa, the extremist anti-Castro campaigner.
Competing candidate Bush then reversed himself, and knowing that he would (or had) Rep. Torricelli led the Congress in re-passing the bill, the prior veto of which had not been overridden. The Torricelli Bill became law and remains on the books, as the Cuban Democracy Act. Helms-Burton, a law that came later, did not enact the embargo. It merely made it worse.
Arguably, his role in this affair greased the path to elevation of Torricelli to the Senate seat that he was obliged to desert.
Amnesia of Americans and their media to international law and its norms could be said to have contributed, at least in part, to the absence of any reference to the bipartisan scandal of the Torricelli contribution to the embargo.
Toricelli's lower house constituency embraced Union City, N J. That had become, by 1992, a branch of embittered expatriate Miami emigre Cubans, dominated by a segment bitterly hostile to the Cuban Revolution.
In behalf of this segment of his district, Rep. Torricelli drafted (or accepted their draft of) a bill that more stringently tightened the embargo against Cuba that had previously been based on executive action. (That status, product of presidential fiat left the embargo more vulnerable to reconsideration and revocation.)
The Torricelli Bill (as it was widely known) was vetoed by then President Bush (the elder) on the ground that provisions with intended extraterritorial application, i.e. directed against other nations and their nationals, would violate International Law.
During the 1992 campaign, Bush vs. Clinton, Torricelli and the leaders of the Miami hardliners, persuaded candidate Clinton to announce that if he were elected, he would sign the Torricelli Bill. At about this time, reportedly, a six-figure sum was given to Clinton at a Florida campaign stop by Jorge Mas Canosa, the extremist anti-Castro campaigner.
Competing candidate Bush then reversed himself, and knowing that he would (or had) Rep. Torricelli led the Congress in re-passing the bill, the prior veto of which had not been overridden. The Torricelli Bill became law and remains on the books, as the Cuban Democracy Act. Helms-Burton, a law that came later, did not enact the embargo. It merely made it worse.
Arguably, his role in this affair greased the path to elevation of Torricelli to the Senate seat that he was obliged to desert.
Amnesia of Americans and their media to international law and its norms could be said to have contributed, at least in part, to the absence of any reference to the bipartisan scandal of the Torricelli contribution to the embargo.