Yes, there's something HRC could do that would halt my opposition

[Jim Lane]

56. Your understanding of Fast Track is factually inaccurate.

You write:

TPP will be voted on by Congress, but they won't be able to amend or revise the final version. That's all Fast Track means.

You're completely omitting the "fast" part of Fast Track. The proposed bill would set artificial time limits on each stage of Congressional consideration.

The Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) originally favored by the coalition of McConnell-Obama-Boehner (the MOB) was objected to by many progressive Democrats on the basis of those time limits. In negotiations between the MOB and the progressives (such as Ron Wyden), a compromise emerged, which somewhat ameliorated the harshness of the MOB's original preferred bill by providing more advance notice to Congress. The compromise retained the feature of artificial deadlines, though.

Incidentally, some people on DU excoriated Wyden for agreeing to the compromise. Certainly the TPA bill that emerged is still bad and should be opposed, but I'm not in a position to say whether Wyden made the best of a bad situation, given the combined political strength of the MOB. Let's just pause for a moment to note that we wouldn't even have this problem if Obama were proposing a TPA that met your description of merely prohibiting amendments.

Your resolute refusal to think about drafts has to be considered in the context of the "fast" part of Fast Track. The fact is that, even under the compromise, the normal democratic process of public discussion will be severely truncated. Therefore, it's not practical for everyone to defer consideration of the proposal until the White House is ready to start the timer. We'll be hit with several hundred pages of proposed rules.

Incidentally, this constant meme of "it's only a draft" is quite unrealistic. The thing has been in negotiation since 2010. The late-stage drafts we've seen are, as any practical person would recognize, likely to be very close to the final. Or do you think maybe ISDS will be completely dropped in the concluding negotiations?

On the no-amendments rule, I personally differ from many progressives in that I think that part is reasonable. In a multilateral agreement, what emerges from the negotiations has to be voted up or down. Otherwise one country's ratification, but with an amendment, would mean that the amended version would then have to go back to all the others, any of whom might add their own amendment, and so on. Of course, having chosen relatively secret negotiations plus a no-amendments course, the Obama Administration must accept that it will lose some votes because of objections that, under other circumstances, could have been addressed before the vote.

The main issue about fast track that proponents never address is why we need artificial deadlines for Congressional action. After more than four years of negotiation, why would this agreement suddenly need to be railroaded through? The most I could see would be a no-filibuster provision, given that the filibuster should be abolished anyway. Other than that, if Members of Congress raise concerns that can't be dealt with by a particular date, then the vote doesn't occur before that date. That's the normal legislative process.

The strong suspicion is that the MOB wants deadlines precisely because it will hinder the opponents, because TPP supporters will have a head start in understanding a hugely complex proposal.