Karen Bass And Keith Ellison Just Threw A Wrench Into The Republican Trade Strategy

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WASHINGTON -- Key Democratic lawmakers, led by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), sent a letter on Wednesday to Senate leaders saying they do not support a new House Republican plan designed to ease the passage of President Barack Obama's trade agenda.

Obama needs Congress to approve a program known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, in order to pass his broader trade platform. And Wednesday's letter, from Reps. Bass, G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), makes that goal harder to achieve.

Many House Republicans, for their part, also do not support TAA, deriding it as a wasteful social welfare program. Since the GOP does not currently have the votes to pass TAA, Republican leaders hope to win over Democrats by combining TAA with the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade package that benefits sub-Saharan African countries. The goal is to sweeten the pot for members of the Congressional Black Caucus who support AGOA.

But Bass, Butterfield, Lee and Ellison -- all CBC members -- wrote Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday urging them to discard that strategy. Bass is considered a bellwether vote in the CBC who can carry much of the caucus with her. Ellison and Lee are among the most progressive members of the CBC, and Ellison has been a vocal critic of Obama's trade agenda.

"AGOA is too important to be used as a bargaining chip to pass unrelated trade legislation," the lawmakers wrote in Wednesday's letter.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/cbc-trade-package_n_7607480.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

[Triana]

1. Butterfield is my congresscritter. I've called his office twice asking him to vote against

TPP, TAA, TPA.

So GOOD on him!