The House of Representatives passed a resolution with broad support on October 29, 2019, and the Senate did the same by unanimous consent on December 12, 2019, making the recognition of the Armenian genocide part of the policy of the United States.
[8] In the days that followed, the Turkish government and lobbyists on their behalf, such as Dick Gephardt and Bob Livingston, successfully worked to get several of the resolution's co-sponsors to withdraw their support.
[10] On October 11, 2007, regarding a proposed U.S. House resolution 106, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said that the measure would be brought to a vote because "While that may have been a long time ago, genocide is taking place now in Darfur, it did within recent memory in Rwanda, so as long as there is genocide there is need to speak out against it ..."[11] However, later she was forced to backtrack from a pledge to bring the measure for a vote because of a waning support for this resolution, since many believe that "angering Turkey would hamper efforts in Iraq".
"[18] Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security adviser, stated in an interview to CNN: As far as a resolution is concerned, I never realized that the House of Representatives was some sort of an academy of learning that passes judgment on historical events.
Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist expressed his surprise that "a Congress that has historically lacked the spine or heart to tackle the nation's ugliest legacies in a meaningful way is censuring Turkey".
The newspaper quotes Robert J. Miller, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who called it "unbelievable" that Congress is pointing fingers elsewhere while ignoring a U.S. history of black enslavement and the destruction and displacement of Indians.
[21] Turkish ambassador Nabi Şensoy stated: "[genocide] is the greatest accusation of all against humanity ... You cannot expect any nation to accept that kind of labeling.
"[citation needed] According to the Washington Post, to defeat the initiative for the resolution, the Turkish government "is spending more than $300,000 a month on communications specialists and high-powered lobbyists, including former congressman Bob Livingston".
The team included former House majority leader Dick Gephardt, who as a congressman had cosponsored genocide resolutions but switched sides in March when his firm signed a $1.2 million-a-year contract to represent the Turks.