Senate Avoids Filibusters on South Africa, Nicaragua

The Senate today voted to choke off threatened filibusters against South African sanctions and President Reagan’s $100-million aid package for Nicaragua’s contra rebels, clearing the way for approval of both measures.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted 89 to 11 to limit debate on sanctions against South Africa’s white-minority government, exceeding the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture by 29 votes. The Senate then agreed to cut off debate on contra aid, 62 to 37.

Under an unusual parliamentary arrangement, the South African cloture vote could take effect only if the Senate agreed to shut down debate on contra aid. Democrats had threatened to delay the rebel aid vote by a filibuster. An initial cloture vote on contra aid fell one vote short of the required 60 senators, 59 to 40.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) crafted the unusual arrangement to improve chances of forcing approval of Reagan’s controversial rebel aid package, by tying it to South African sanctions, which many Democrats favor. If the dual cloture motions had failed, debate on both issues would have continued, possibly delaying the Senate’s end-of-summer recess set to begin Friday.

In votes Tuesday night and today, the Senate endorsed the House-passed contra aid package and defeated a string of Democratic attempts to limit U.S. assistance to the rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist government.

Pressing toward final approval of the rebel aid package, the Senate today refused to bar U.S. military advisers from training the contras in Honduras and Costa Rica.