[CTC] Fast-track vote still up in the air

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Two articles below.  A lot of spin here from the other side, which still doesn’t have the votes they need, BUT it is going to be close.  We need to keep pushing hard...


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/fast-track-vote-still-up-in-the-air-118722.html#ixzz3cTblODYB <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/fast-track-vote-still-up-in-the-air-118722.html#ixzz3cTblODYB>

Fast-track vote still up in the air
Pro-trade lawmakers say they have the votes to pass the bill, but the final outcome is going to be tight.
By Lauren French <http://www.politico.com/reporters/LaurenFrench.html> and John Bresnahan <http://www.politico.com/reporters/JohnBresnahan.html>
6/8/15 5:02 AM EDT

Supporters of a controversial trade bill are increasingly confident they can secure the votes needed to pass so-called fast-track legislation when it hits the House floor, which could come as early as this week.

Still, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and other GOP leaders have not yet committed to bringing up Trade Promotion Authority by week’s end, a sign that while pro-trade leaders in the House are closing in on the 217 ayes they need to pass the bill, the contentious vote remains very close. Only about a dozen members remain undecided, most of them Democrats, and President Barack Obama is expected to make another lobbying push this week to try and win over wavering members of his party.

Republican aides predicted a decision by Wednesday on whether the measure would come up for consideration in the House this week, signaling it does not have the votes to pass quite yet.

Support for fast-track — which allows Congress up-or-down votes to approve trade packages while barring amendments — is a rare point of agreement between Obama and Hill Republicans. And enacting fast-track would be a major victory for the president, who needs the expedited authority to finalize a huge Pacific trade accord, the centerpiece of Obama’s economic agenda.

In fact, with bitter fights looming over government spending this summer, it may be the last time for months that Obama and GOP leaders work together in relative harmony.
Congressional sources estimate the pool of undecided members at just over a dozen lawmakers — mostly Democrats torn between supporting Obama’s quest for a historic Pacific Rim trade deal and traditional party backers like labor unions, who have turned the TPA vote into a litmus test for deciding whether to support incumbents heading into 2016.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind, the lead Democrat whipping for the legislation, need at least 217 members to support the deal for it to pass, though congressional sources say both sides want 220 to 225 “yes” votes lined up to avoid the possibility that any one lawmaker could be tagged with casting the deciding vote. So far, more than 18 Democrats have publicly committed to supporting the legislation.

“Over the last few weeks, we have gained more support amongst House Democrats to pass a trade promotion authority bill that will strengthen fundamental labor and environmental rights protections and gives the American people at least 90 days to review every line, every word and every comma in the trade agreement before the House will vote on an agreement,” Kind said.

Kind added, “I am confident that we are going to have the Democratic votes needed to pass TPA.”

Selling fast-track to the House Democratic Caucus has always been the major hurdle, as the overwhelming majority of Republicans support the measure.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland have said they are committed to finding a “path to yes.” But they have otherwise refused to signal which way they are leaning on fast-track.

Pelosi and Hoyer want to avoid embarrassing Obama with a losing vote but are caught between competing loyalties to the president and their deeply progressive caucus. Labor unions believe Pelosi will ultimately side with them and vote against the package, but the White House has said privately it thinks the California Democrat is more inclined to support the bill when it comes to the floor for the vote.

On the whole, though, House Democrats oppose the measure. Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, have lobbied aggressively against fast-track because of larger concerns about labor and environmental standards and currency manipulation in the forthcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership. The massive trade package, which includes the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries, is still being negotiated.

“The majority of the House of Representatives knows the bill passed by the Senate is bad policy that would cost American jobs, depress our wages, and put seniors’ health and the safety of our food supply at risk. That is why there is such broad opposition,” DeLauro said Sunday in a statement issued by her office.

DeLauro, who has claimed for weeks she has the votes to defeat fast-track, has the backing of labor unions that are pledging to pull support from any vulnerable Democrat who votes for the trade legislation. Labor activists have already pledged to run $84,000 in TV ads in Rep. Ami Bera’s California district to punish the Democrat for his full-throated endorsement of fast-track.
“For huge numbers of us, it is a mistake to grant ‘fast-track’ while there remain major problems on so many issues with the TPP negotiations,” Levin said in a statement to POLITICO. “At this critical stage in the negotiations, Congress should not give the Administration a blank check on resolving those issues, leaving itself only with [a] yes or no vote after the agreement is done. We need a TPP that is clearly on the right track.”

With so much at stake, Obama has launched a lobbying blitz to push supporters his way. He’s spent the past two weeks calling up Democrats who were on the sidelines to assuage any lingering concerns. A number of those lawmakers, like Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut and Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, have since signaled their support for fast-track.

Still, the vote margin has remained largely static, with both sides fiercely fighting over a small pool of undecided lawmakers. But the pro-trade wing won an unexpected victory over the weekend when Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) announced she would support fast-track — after previously signing on to letters voicing her opposition to the measure.

“Far too many things are getting lost in an important debate that has listed wildly between public policy, theatre, and threat. But a few things to me have become crystal clear, and these are what I’m going to let guide my vote when fast track hits the House floor in the coming weeks,” Rice wrote in an op-ed in The Hill. “Lost in the ensuing dust-up is that the fast-track legislation recently passed by the Senate outlines unprecedented requirements to address the worker-protection problems of NAFTA. It sets high labor and environmental standards, and ensures that trade sanctions can be imposed on any country that fails to meet these marks.”

Republicans are closely watching numbers on their side, too, with party leaders buoyed by the support they received throughout the week. Boehner, McCarthy, Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a key player in the fast-track fight, hosted a Wednesday meeting with trade associations, agriculture groups and manufacturers that drew 150 attendees. And lawmakers were treated to pizza in Scalise’s office during a series of late-night votes that attendees said came with a side order of trade lobbying.

There is less dissent among the GOP Conference, but still, Boehner and McCarthy want to get their numbers closer to 190 before scheduling a vote. Ohio Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi, a close ally of Boehner’s and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said over the weekend that trade is vital to growing the economy — a key selling point of the GOP leaders’ push to woo Republicans not thrilled with giving Obama more executive authority.

“If we pass TPA, we’ll be able to make agreements that give us access to billions of new customers,” Tiberi said in the weekly Republican address. “And our workers will be able to compete for that business on a level playing field, where we know we can outwork anyone.”

John Bresnahan contributed to this report.


http://thehill.com/policy/finance/trade/244165-trade-supporters-bullish-as-vote-nears

Trade supporters bullish as vote nears
By Mike Lillis and Scott Wong - 06/07/15 06:00 AM EDT

House GOP leaders are expressing a bold new confidence heading into the final stretch of the divisive fight over granting President Obama broad trade powers.

The vote, expected as soon as this week, is likely to be a nail-biter — scores of lawmakers in both parties remain publicly undecided, making the count on both sides difficult to pin down.

But both the White House and GOP leaders say their whipping efforts are paying dividends, with new supporters signing on by the day. 

The White House won a victory last week when Reps. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Don Beyer (Va.) and Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) announced their support. And both Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said that, while they don’t have the votes yet, they expect to very soon.

“If we don’t get it done in June, I don’t know why you’d think we can get it done in July,” said Boehner, who’s been coordinating efforts with the White House and recently spoke with Obama. "We need to get this finished. We’re gonna get it done.”

Eighteen Democrats are publicly backing <http://thehill.com/policy/finance/trade/241114-whip-list-dems-bucking-obama-on-trade> the trade-promotion authority (TPA) bill, known as fast-track, which passed the Senate with bipartisan support last month. But a number of undecided Democrats being targeted by Obama — including Reps. G.K. Butterfield (N.C.), John Carney (Del.) and Cedric Richmond (La.) — said last week that they're leaning against it.

“People have been contacting me now for about seven or eight months, [and] 100 percent of them have been asking me to vote no,” said Richmond, who represents most of New Orleans. “And I told the president in our conversation that he was the first call asking me to vote for it. And I think that shocked him that my business community — considering I have the large port and all these other businesses  — have never reached out.”

Democratic support will be vital to the fate of the measure, as GOP leaders don't have the 217 or 218 votes to pass it through the lower chamber on their own. They face strong headwinds from conservatives wary of granting additional authority to a president they don’t trust to use it wisely.

“We could wait another 18 months until this administration is out,” Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), a TPA opponent, said Thursday. “You look at how they negotiated the release of the Taliban Five; you look at how they negotiated what they've done with Cuba; look at how they've negotiated what we've done with the Iran nuclear deal — I personally don't want them negotiating anything else.”

Ryan countered that TPA actually “constrains the president,” requiring administration officials to follow guidelines set by Congress and frequently brief lawmakers about any progress in negotiations. Members also can sit in on the talks.

And he’s been making the case to conservatives that the agreement to curb Tehran’s nuclear program would have been much stronger had a “TPA for Iran” been in place.

“It puts Congress in charge. It empowers us, not him,” said Ryan, the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee and a respected voice on Capitol Hill. “It brings more accountability, more transparency, more congressional control over the process.”

Republicans familiar with the vote-counting operation say they’ve steadily been picking up new “yes” votes on trade and that the numbers are moving in the right direction. In fact, Ryan, after the last vote series of the week Thursday, told reporters he had just secured “several” new TPA supporters on the House floor, though he wouldn’t name names.

“The momentum is on our side,” said a senior GOP leadership aide.

Perhaps sensing that shift, a number of liberal groups launched an 11th-hour push Friday urging House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to take a strong stand against the fast-track bill. 

Pelosi has expressed strong objections to parts of Obama’s trade agenda. But along with other top Democrats — including Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Jim Clyburn (S.C.) — she hasn't taken a public position on either the TPA or an emerging Pacific Rim deal opposed by an overwhelming majority of the caucus she leads. 

That silence stands in sharp contrast to the vocal opposition of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who led an unsuccessful fight against the TPA bill in the upper chamber. And it has angered liberals who want her to rally Democrats against Obama’s trade agenda.

"House Democrats are under intense pressure from the president, from Republicans, and from big corporations to support Fast Track," Jim Dean, the head Democracy for America, said in an email urging members to sign a petition calling on Pelosi to lead the opposition charge. "If Nancy Pelosi comes out against Fast Track, that will help give those Democrats important cover to stand up to the rich and powerful and stop this bad deal."

House Democratic trade supporters, meanwhile, are scrambling alongside the White House to pull their colleagues behind the TPA. Those lawmakers — including Reps. Ron Kind (Wis.), Mike Quigley (Ill.), Gerry Connolly (Va.) and Gregory Meeks (N.Y.) — say an Obama presidency represents the best chance to strike an agreement that addresses concerns about the environment, food safety and workers rights that may not be assured under another president.

"If you vote for TPA, you can still vote against the trade deal. But you're trusting the president to put the best thing out there," Quigley said. "[Obama is] the ideal president to cut this deal," he added. "When is it going to get better?" 

The TPA bill would grant Congress an up-or-down vote on Obama's trade deals, but prohibit amendments or a filibuster in the Senate. The extra authority is seen as a necessary step in the president's bid to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping accord with Japan and 10 other nations. 

The pact has emerged as the top economic priority of Obama’s second term.

On Capitol Hill, rumors are running rampant about the whip count, with often-conflicting figures being floated by both sides.

Last week, Obama told Himes that he believed he had 20 Democratic votes lined up for TPA,The Wall Street Journal reported. But a member of the pro-TPA Democratic whip team told lawmakers that number might now be as high as 25 or 26, said one Democrat who was informed of the figure.

“That was higher than I thought,” said the Democrat, who has already pledged to vote against TPA. 

Republican leaders have been reluctant to share exactly how many votes they’ve lined up, but leadership allies have said they will need to deliver at least 190 votes given the overwhelming Democratic opposition.

And Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), one of the rare conservatives backing TPA, said party leaders still had a long way to go before getting to their target, which he believes is closer to 195 votes.

“They’re clearly in trouble. They’ve postponed everything for another week,” Salmon said in an interview. “We were told they were gonna vote on it [this] week, and now it’s going to be the week after. 

“My guess is, and it’s just a gut feeling, they are probably 15 to 20 votes away,” he added.

There's also a growing concern among liberal Democrats over a $700 million offset provision for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, a piece of the Trans-Pacific Partnership providing health insurance, retraining and other help to U.S. workers negatively affected by the deal. The cost would be offset by cuts to Medicare.

Behind Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the leaders of the Progressive Caucus, more than 50 House Democrats wrote to Boehner and Pelosi <http://www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2015/06/02/Editorial-Opinion/Graphics/img-602094923-0001.pdf> last week warning that the Medicare offset would undermine a program on which more than 50 million seniors rely. 

And Pelosi has endorsed that message, saying the Medicare provision is "a nonstarter" for House Democrats.

"It has to be paid for, let's find a pay-for," she told reporters Thursday. "Let's not take it at a place that hurts the very people that we're trying to help."





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