Congress rejects Obama veto, Saudi Sept 11 Bill becomes law

Reuters, Washington :
Congress on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, the first veto override of his presidency, just four months before it ends.
The House of Representatives voted 348-77 against the veto, hours after the Senate rejected it 97-1, meaning the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” will become law.
The vote was a blow to Obama and to Saudi Arabia, one of the United States’ longest-standing allies in the Arab world.
Obama’s 11 previous vetoes were all sustained. But this time almost all of his strongest supporters in Congress opposed him in one of their last actions before leaving Washington to campaign for the Nov. 8 election.
“Overriding a presidential veto is something we don’t take lightly, but it was important in this case that the families of the victims of 9/11 be allowed to pursue justice, even if that pursuit causes some diplomatic discomforts,” Senator Charles Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said in a statement.
Schumer represents New York, the site of the World Trade Center and home to many of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the 2001 attacks, attack survivors and families of victims.
He led the fight for the legislation in the Senate, with Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s other senator and also a Democrat, cast the 67th “no” vote, the number needed to override the veto in the Senate.
The law, known as JASTA, passed the House and Senate without objections earlier this year.
Some victims’ families had been pushing for the legislation for the 15 years since the attacks. They wanted a law granting an exception to the legal principle of sovereign immunity barring them from seeking damages from the Saudi government.
Riyadh denies long-standing suspicions that it backed the hijackers of the four jetliners that attacked the United States in 2001. Fifteen of the 19 were Saudi nationals.