Nancy Pelosi could be key in the fight over fast-track trade legislation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
moved to end debate on Trade Promotion Authority—fast-track trade legislation—late Tuesday. That cloture vote is planned for Thursday morning on TPA and Trade Adjustment Assistance, which provides money for retraining and employment support to workers who lose their jobs because of trade deals. But before then? Unknown.
More than 150 amendments to TPA have been submitted. It's not clear which or how many or whether any amendments will get a vote in the Senate. McConnell said Tuesday: “While I will be filing cloture on the bill this evening, that’s not the end of the story. The bill managers will continue working together to get more amendments available for a vote before the cloture vote.” If passed, some proposed amendments would likely peel away support for TPA and presumably.
A key obstacle is that reauthorization for the Export-Import Bank—which subsidizes overseas purchases of U.S. made goods—expires June 30. The bank has been criticized by Republican conservatives who think it provides too much assistance to large corporations, such as Boeing. They claim to have the votes in the House to keep the bank from being reauthorized. In the Senate, what's at issue is whether an amendment on Ex-Im Bank reauthorization will get a vote before the TPA/TAA cloture.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) both took to the floor Tuesday just before McConnell's move to say a vote on Ex-Im needs to happen before the fast-track cloture vote. Graham was explicit: without the bank vote ahead of time, he will not vote in favor of cloture. McConnell, on the other hand, has vowed to block a bank vote.
Another amendment designed to help the U.S. steel industry to fight against what it views as unfair trade practices has been proposed by Republican Sen. Rob Portman and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, both of Ohio. Brown is one of the leaders rallying liberals in the Senate against TPA.
Odds greatly favor the successful working out of these matters, and cloture likely will get at least the 60 votes it needs in the Senate, either this week or after Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess. When it does, fast-track will become a matter for the House, and there, as activist foes of the legislation have said all along, is where the real fight will be. Few House Democrats favor fast-tracking. Estimates differ, but nobody puts the number of Democratic supporters as high as 20. This matters because some Republicans oppose fast-tracking, too. The question: Will it be enough to stop the legislation?
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As far as Democrats are concerned, opposition may be hardening. Greg Sargent reported Tuesday on a classified briefing by the U.S. Trade Representative last week regarding how nations such as Vietnam will be forced by TPP to comply with higher worker standards:
Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan—the ranking Dem on the House Ways and Means Committee and a respected lawmaker on trade and labor issues—tells me he came away from that briefing less confident that the deal will impose meaningfully enforceable labor standards on Vietnam. He remains unpersuaded that Vietnam has agreed to the sort of changes, as a condition for participating in TPP, that Dems are hoping for.
“There’s been no commitment and nothing has been agreed to in terms of changes in their laws and practices,” Levin told me. “At this point Vietnam doesn’t begin to conform with basic international standards on worker rights. At this point, there are no commitments from Vietnam to take any steps. … At this point, I have no confidence that it will be done before we vote.”
Another key factor is the role of former Speaker and now House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Erica Werner at the Associated Press
notes that she's between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, she's been loyal to President Obama, and the trade deal is something he wants very much. On the other, the vast majority of her caucus wants to block it.
"I really want a path to 'yes,' desperately," Pelosi told the AP. "I would hope that we could come together on something that we're in agreement on, but this is a vote that people will very much be voting their districts and there's a lot of, shall we say, opinion on this in people's districts." [...]
"It is something that corporate America wants very much, they have their friends on the Republican side. They should be able to produce this victory," Pelosi said. Of House Speaker John Boehner she said: "He's Speaker. ... It's up to him to produce the votes."
That sounds like someone balancing on a political tightrope. Pelosi is undoubtedly under enormous pressure. Obama has lobbied her hard, including at a one-on-one lunch.
Will all that White House attention be enough to convince her to try to persuade a few reluctant Democrats to vote for fast-tracking and add their numbers to the Republican majority? Will it even be enough to convince her to vote in favor? Come next week, she will have to decide whether to side with the president or join with the members of her caucus who stand with labor advocates, environmentalists and other activists who oppose fast-tracking.