Give the Democratic Trade Turncoats Hell Over Fast Track Vote
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/give-the-democratic-trade-turncoats-hell-over-fast-track-vote.html#comment-2443890
After a rare show of spine yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked the Administration plan to bring the Fast Track authorization (FTA), which would effectively secure passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTiP), to a debate. This was a bloody nose to Obama. Knowing that the House had the potential to be a battleground for the bill, the Adminstration chose to originate it in the Senate, with the idea that they’d get swift passage with a comfortable majority which would help persuade fence-sitters and weak opponents.
Instead, the fight in the Senate went much better than the trade deal’s opponents dared hoped, tuning into a high-profile drama and showing how deep-seated opposition to the bill is.
Today, Obama got ten Democratic senators to flip their votes without giving them the concession that they had wanted, that of passing a set of other trade-related provisions along with Fast Track authorization. As we indicated yesterday, one of the changes they had wanted, putting more stringent sanctions in place against foreign government currency manipulation, was anathema to the Administration.
So after what appears to have been no more than a dressing down, ten Democratic party senators relented, giving Obama a clear path to moving Fast Track authorization to a vote in the Senate.
Now do not forget that the key vote was and remains in the House. As Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, which has done impressive, sustained work on trade deals over the years, said on
Democracy Now yesterday morning, before Obama won over his Judases:
But it’s not over. It’s going to come back up for another repackaging. It was a very important signal, because the whole point in going to the Senate was to show, oh, fast track has momentum, because in the House it’s in real, honest-to-God trouble. In the Senate, it’s more like skirmishes, that show how extremely well the public has done in making their senators, as well as their House members, wary of doing this trade vote. But in the Senate, eventually they will get the vote. In the House, different piece of business. And so, folks who don’t want to see fast track, the House is the place to focus. But for the next couple of weeks, call your senators, because it’s an interesting food fight.
It is important to let the ten turncoat Senators know that their constituents tell them that they are supposed to represent their interest, and not carry water for the President. As
Lambert noted in comments yesterday :
One of signs that the Roman Republic was in terminal decay was that the Senate stopped insisting on its institutional prerogatives. Ceasar Augustus, being very smart, stabilized the imperial system by restoring the forms of their institutional power, but never the substance.
So if the Senate wants to stay the Senate, they need to whack Obama on this, hard. That’s why Warren pointing out the absurdity of (substantively) passing the bill by approving Fast Track, and then (formally) passing it without the power to amend it, is such a powerful argument.
Therefore, in addition to calling your Representative (
contact information here) be SURE to call your Senators if they are one of the traitors whose sellout was critical to Obama expecting to pass Fast Track later today. As reader Ulysses wrote:
These are the ten Senate Dems who were in a White House meeting, earlier today, and enlisted to assist the GOP with giving President Obama fast-track approval tomorrow:
Tom Carper (Del),
Michael Bennet (Colo.),
Maria Cantwell (Wash.),
Ben Cardin (Md.),
Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.),
Tim Kaine (Va.),
Patty Murray (Wash.),
Bill Nelson (Fla.),
Mark Warner (Va.) and
Ron Wyden (Ore.).
SENATE CONTACT DETAILS
I appeal to anyone who lives in any of these Senators’ states to contact them and urge them not to give fast-track authority tomorrow!! Carper and Wyden are probably lost causes, but the rest of them may be susceptible to constituent pressure. THANK YOUR SENATOR WHO OPPOSED FAST TRACK!
MORE AT LINK
And again, thanks for your efforts so far in this important fight, and keep the pressure on!
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