[CTC] The populists capture the Democratic Party

Wed Apr 15 16:31:03 PDT 2015

Great coverage of today’s #FastTrackDOA rally in DC.  Over 60 other actions planned across the country — many this Saturday — can be found on our site <http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/blog/2015/03/25/april-18th-national-day-of-action-against-fast-track/>   

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-populists-capture-the-democratic-party/2015/04/15/917fc7f0-e3ad-11e4-905f-cc896d379a32_story.html <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-populists-capture-the-democratic-party/2015/04/15/917fc7f0-e3ad-11e4-905f-cc896d379a32_story.html>
The populists capture the Democratic Party
The Washington Post
By Dana Milbank
April 15, 2015

It was another one of those rallies on Capitol Hill where lawmakers line up to take shots at the Obama administration. But this time the lawmakers were all Democrats.

A quartet of senators and a dozen members of the House took the stage in a park across from the Capitol midday Wednesday to join hundreds of steelworkers, union faithful and environmentalists in denouncing President Obama’s bid for fast-track approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal <http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-evolution-on-trade-will-put-him-at-war-with-his-party/2015/04/15/dabd42f4-ccc8-11e4-a2a7-9517a3a70506_story.html>. 

“I’ve never seen a trade agreement that is more secretive than this one,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told the crowd. “What are they hiding? What they’re hiding is a huge shift from democratically elected governments to corporations all over the world, and that’s why we’re fighting.” 

“The administration is engaged in new transparency with this agreement — transparency — so I brought a copy,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said, holding up — nothing. “Oh. It’s transparent. You can’t see it.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) protested that “we are headed for the madhouse with this agreement.” Poking the air with her index finger, she added, “I did not come to Congress to give up my constitutional authority to any administration, Democrat or Republican.”

There were cheers in the decidedly Democratic crowd. 

Rep. Alan Grayson, the firebrand Florida Democrat, said that “we’ve had, I hate to say this, a sellout government,” and that it doesn’t much matter “who’s in charge, Democrats [or] Republicans.”

Grayson told me after the event that speakers would have been harsher in their words about the Democratic president — they refrained from criticizing Obama by name — but that would have caused “cognitive dissonance” in the Democratic crowd. One of the United Steelworkers officials described Obama as a “shadow” over the event, and he accused Obama of “splitting the Democrats.”

But Obama hasn’t really split the Democrats. They are almost unanimously opposed to him on trade. The upcoming battle over fast-tracking and the Trans-Pacific Partnership shows how dramatically the center of gravity in the Democratic Party has shifted.  

Twenty years ago, half of Senate Democrats and 40 percent of House Democrats voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement. This time, even if Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, signs off on a fast-track deal, proponents say a best-case scenario has them winning only 10 of the 46 Democrats — and an even smaller percentage of House Democrats, despite aggressive lobbying by the usually passive White House.

Part of the change reflects the loss of moderates in Congress, and part is because of empirical experience with NAFTA. But the shift also is indication of the ascendancy of the populist wing of the party, in numbers and, particularly, energy. Obama, not up for reelection, can afford to defy the populists, but future Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, don’t have that luxury.

The populist muscle was on display Wednesday at the rally, hosted by Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, who sprinkled foul language in his introductions of the various speakers. Privately, lawmakers expressed doubts that they could block passage, but publicly they were full of fight. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), the Democrats’ populist star, pumped her fist and shouted into the microphone: “No more secret trade deals! Are you ready to fight? No more special deals for multinational corporations! Are you ready to fight?”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) called the trade pact “the bad sequel of bad sequels, the ‘Sharknado 2’ of trade.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), planning a symbolic challenge to Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, warned of a Congress “totally owned by billionaires and their lobbyists.” American Federation of Government Employees chief J. David Cox proposed they “open up one gigantic can of whoop-ass” on legislators who support the deal.

Cox didn’t propose using whoop-ass on Obama, if only because it’s “a lost battle” with him. But it stung that a Democratic president was siding with Republicans on trade and against the Democratic base. Fred Rolando, head of the letter carriers union, addressed U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman “and the rest of you at USTR and in the White House: We don’t trust you on this.”

Rep. Donna Edwards (D), running for the Senate in Maryland, did a twirl on the stage and asked, “Do I look like a rubber stamp?”

And Grayson demanded they “take back our government” from “the political acrobats and the corporate aristocrats.”

Grayson, after the rally, called Obama’s position “unfortunate” and demoralizing. “We’ve done this experiment where we try to drift over to the other side and see whether we can win Republican votes,” he said. “We’ve done that experiment just like we’ve done the NAFTA experiment, and both of them have failed.” 

Twitter: @Milbank

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http://thehill.com/policy/finance/238956-labor-groups-rally-against-trade-promotion-authority <http://thehill.com/policy/finance/238956-labor-groups-rally-against-trade-promotion-authority>

Labor groups rally against trade promotion authority

The Hill
By Vicki Needham
April 15, 2015

Organized labor rallied Wednesday on Capitol Hill in its latest blitz against the White House’s efforts to obtain trade powers that would move agreements more easily through Congress. 

Congressional Democrats joined union leaders and workers in swarming a Senate-side park in their latest effort to urge Congress to defeat trade promotion authority. About 1,200 supporters were in attendance, according to an estimate by the rally's hosts.

Led by the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers, the rally punctuated months of nearly continuous campaigning to convince Democrats that opposing so-called fast-track authority is the only way to stop bad trade deals.  

“Our trade policies should level the playing field, punish those who violate the law and strengthen our middle class,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). 

“The last thing we need is another trade deal negotiated behind closed doors and rushed through Congress,” he said at the event. 

Amid expectations that the Senate could soon reach an agreement on a fast-track bill, which would only give Congress an up-or-down vote on any trade deal that reaches Capitol Hill, labor unions have ramped up their push against it. 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are still negotiating fast-track legislation.

Very few Democrats in the House have expressed support for fast-track, and labor unions are trying to wipe out any shot that a bill could get through Congress and boost the chances that a massive Asia-Pacific trade deal can get done. 

Brown urged the boisterous crowd to keep up the pressure on their lawmakers, arguing that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an agreement that represents “a huge shift from democratically elected governments to huge corporations.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another outspoken critic, said those canvassing congressional offices should ask two questions — why is the trade deal being negotiated in secret and who benefits?

Warren answered her own second question with “corporate giants.”

J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said workers shouldn’t just say “no” to fast-track, they should say “hell no,” getting a chant started that echoed across the Capitol grounds. 

More than a dozen House and Senate Democrats joined the anti-fast-track rally that is part of week of events. 

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who is vying to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski, did a 360 on the stage and asked the crowd, “do I look like a rubber stamp?”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a possible Democratic presidential candidate, told the crowd “we’ve had one disastrous trade agreement after another.”  

“These trade agreements have been pushed by corporate America for one simple reason,” he said. “They want to shut down plants in America, throw workers on the street and move jobs to China or other low wage countries.”

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POLITICO

Warren says she's all in in fight against fast track

4/15/15 1:09 PM EDT
Sen. Elizabeth Warren today drove home her strong opposition to trade promotion authority and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, earning roars of approval from hundreds of steelworkers and other union members at a Capitol Hill rally.

"We're here today to fight," the Massachusetts Democrat said, whipping up the crowd in a park facing the Capitol Building. "We are here to fight. Are you ready to fight?"

The crowd yelled back that it was.

Warren was the first of more than a dozen lawmakers and union leaders who spoke at the "No on Fast Track" event. Others included Sens. Al Franken, Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown and Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Tim Ryan and Dan Kildee.

"Are you ready to fight any more trade deals that say 'we're going to help the rich get richer and leave everybody else behind'?," Warren asked, taking a populist stand against the Asia-Pacific trade agreement the White House says will increase U.S. exports and raise labor and environmental standards in a fast-growing region.

The rally came as House and Senate negotiators continued months of hard bargaining over a final TPA bill and related legislation. It was unclear how close they were to a final deal, as well as the final obstacles that still stood in the way.

Warren, who has turned aside pleas for her to run for president, told the union members she had their back.

"Workers have to fight back. I'm proud to be with you and I'm going to be with you all the way," she said.

— Doug Palmer

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