Activist Groups Statements Blasting Senate Advance of TPA

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Lori Wallach, Director and Founder of Global Trade Watch, a division of Public Citizen, on Senate Cloture on Fast Track:

“The Fast Track bill’s unexpected troubles in the Senate, capped by today’s squeaker vote, certainly did not create the intended momentum for House consideration where Fast Track is known to be in trouble. If President Obama had only follow through on his 2008 campaign promises to replace the Nixon-era Fast Track mechanism with a more inclusive, democratic process, his prospects for obtaining trade authority would not be so dim. Since 1988, only Presidents Reagan and Bush have convinced Congress to provide the multi-year open-ended Fast Track delegation that Obama seeks. In the past 21 years, Congress has only allowed the outdated procedure to go into effect for five years.”

CREDO Action Deputy Political Director Murshed Zaheed, on the vote:

“By voting to close debate on Trade Promotion Authority, the Senate fast tracked, fast track,” said Murshed Zaheed, Deputy Political Director of CREDO Action. “When the Senate debated fast track in 2002, it spent three weeks considering the legislation. This year Barack Obama and Mitch McConnell jammed through TPA, with limited amendments, focused more on getting Senators home for vacation, than on the Americans who have lost their jobs due to poorly negotiated trade deals,” Zaheed added.

Justin Krebs, campaign director for MoveOn.org Civic Action, responded to the Senate reaching cloture today on legislation that would give President Obama Fast Track authority over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret trade deal that puts corporate interests over the interests of American workers:

“Today, the Senate advanced the dangerous Fast Track bill. MoveOn.org members are disturbed that the Senate would put the interests of massive, multinational corporations ahead of American workers and consumers—and especially disappointed in Democratic Senators Cantwell, Murray, Heitkamp, Coons, and McCaskill. These elected officials betrayed the voters who elected them to office by supporting Trade Promotion Authority that threatens to rush through a secretive trade deal, which could undermine protections for workers, consumers, and the environment, while giving big corporations even more power.”

“MoveOn.org members are troubled by the Senate’s actions today, and we are ready to ensure House Democrats understand that the interests of American workers must come before those of massive, multinational corporations.”

“It’s a testament to the growing movement opposing Fast Track that this vote was as close as it was. MoveOn members will remember elected officials—like Senators Warren, Brown, and Sanders—who continue to fight for strong protections for workers and consumers, for regulations on currency manipulation, against secrecy in trade agreements, and against provisions that increase corporate power.”

“As this moves to the House, we look forward to working with House Democrats to make sure that Fast Track and the job-killing TPP move no further. Every Democrat who cares about American workers, consumer protections, and environmental regulations must commit to voting against this bill.”

Democracy for America Statement

“If Democrats fail to retake the Senate in 2016, a great deal of the responsibility will lie at the feet of the Democratic Senators who set fire to our party’s credibility as champions for working people in the battle against growing income inequality by voting to advance Fast Track for the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“From the very start, we’ve known that the real battle against Fast Track for the job-killing TPP would take place in the House and now that it appears set to head there, we’re ready.

“The army of corporate executives and industry lobbyists who wrote the TPP by and for themselves may have survived this key Senate vote, but they should know that hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists who have united behind Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders to fight this job-killing trade deal are just getting started.” — Jim Dean, Chair, Democracy for America

read: http://ourfuture.org/20150521/these-13-democrats-are-helping-rush-fast-track-through-the-senate