DelBene, Kilmer, Larsen planning to vote for fast-track; McDermott, Smith, Heck opposed

As many read­ers of the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate may have heard, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is set to vote tomor­row on con­tro­ver­sial “trade pro­mo­tion author­i­ty” leg­is­la­tion that would grant Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma the pow­er to fast-track the pro­posed Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship. This leg­is­la­tion has already made it through the Sen­ate and is now await­ing a vote in the House.

Sup­port for and oppo­si­tion to fast-track does not break down along par­ty lines. A num­ber of mem­bers from the House Repub­li­can cau­cus’ mil­i­tant Tea Par­ty fac­tion plan to vote no because they don’t want to give Pres­i­dent Oba­ma fast-track author­i­ty or a polit­i­cal vic­to­ry. To off­set their no votes, Boehn­er needs some Democ­rats to cross over. The White House has been try­ing to con­vince Democ­rats from trade-rich areas like the Pacif­ic North­west to sup­ply those votes.

Most of the House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus is expect­ed to vote no, because a vote for fast-track is a vote to tie Con­gress’ hands and pre­vent it from hav­ing any fur­ther role in the secre­tive Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship except tak­ing an up-or-down vote on the leg­is­la­tion when it comes up for final ratification.

We at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute strong­ly oppose fast-track and have been con­tact­ing mem­bers of Con­gress from the Pacif­ic North­west, ask­ing them to stand up for the region’s work­ing peo­ple and vote no.

Three Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers of Con­gress from Wash­ing­ton have answered the call and will cast “nay” votes: Jim McDer­mott, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck.

Wash­ing­ton’s oth­er three Demo­c­ra­t­ic U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tives — Suzan Del­Bene, Derek Kilmer, and Rick Larsen — are unfor­tu­nate­ly sid­ing with the White House, as are all four of Wash­ing­ton’s Repub­li­can U.S. Representatives.

We’re dis­ap­point­ed in all sev­en of them, and par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ed in Del­Bene, Kilmer, and Larsen. Larsen at least has an easy-to-find expla­na­tion of his posi­tion with a ratio­nale. There’s a page on his web­site where he out­lines his views on fast-track and responds to ques­tions he’s received.

The same can­not be said of Suzan Del­Bene and Derek Kilmer. Their offi­cial House land­ing pages do not say any­thing about fast-track or the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship, even though the House is on the verge of vot­ing on the matter.

A search of Kilmer’s web­site for TPP yield­ed only a copied arti­cle from Politi­co which men­tions a tele­vi­sion inter­view Pres­i­dent Oba­ma gave to KING5 in an attempt to sway Kilmer’s vote. A search of Del­Bene’s web­site yield­ed only this Feb­ru­ary press release tout­ing a let­ter to the U.S. Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive urg­ing that the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship have a strong envi­ron­ment chapter.

Del­Bene and Kilmer did talk to the Seat­tle P‑I’s Joel Con­nel­ly, but they are only quot­ed briefly in his sto­ry about the pend­ing vote.

Con­trast that lack of trans­paren­cy with the group that’s plan­ning to vote no (we’ll call them the work­ing peo­ple’s advo­cates). Adam Smith and Den­ny Heck pub­lished com­pelling state­ments to the front pages of their web­sites (which they also tweet­ed) announc­ing how they plan to vote.

“This trade frame­work is skewed to ben­e­fit cor­po­ra­tions; an exam­ple of this is the investor-state dis­pute set­tle­ment,” Smith said. “This mech­a­nism gives cor­po­ra­tions the pri­vate right to sue coun­tries direct­ly for what they may deem to be dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, unfair, or arbi­trary treat­ment by the host government.”

“Mean­while, work­ers do not have the same right to action should a coun­try vio­late its work­er or envi­ron­men­tal oblig­a­tions under the agree­ment. For exam­ple, if a cor­po­ra­tion per­ceives that it is neg­a­tive­ly impact­ed by a country’s enact­ment of a safe­ty or envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion law it has the right to sue that coun­try. How­ev­er, vio­la­tions brought by labor or envi­ron­men­tal groups must go through a long and cum­ber­some process through the U.S. Gov­ern­ment that can take sev­er­al years.”

“I am open to trade leg­is­la­tion that enhances our abil­i­ty to bet­ter com­pete in a glob­al econ­o­my, but this approach is piece­meal and does not do enough to advance the inter­ests and poten­tial of the hard-work­ing Amer­i­cans I rep­re­sent. We can do bet­ter,” added Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck.

McDer­mot­t’s web­site does not have a state­ment up, but the Con­gress­man has been open and vocal about his oppo­si­tion to fast-track.

He speaks much more blunt­ly than Kilmer and Del­Bene in Joel Con­nel­ly’s sto­ry and is fea­tured in this Wall Street Jour­nal sto­ry about the push­back to fast-track. (The sto­ry notes that pro­po­nents of rigged trade deals are hav­ing a hard­er time sell­ing their wares on Capi­tol Hill these days.)

The Ore­gon House del­e­ga­tion is also split on fast-track, though bare­ly.

Ordi­nar­i­ly-reli­able Democ­rats Earl Blu­me­nauer and Suzanne Bonam­i­ci are join­ing less-depend­able Demo­c­rat Kurt Schrad­er and Repub­li­can Greg Walden to back fast-track. That leaves Peter DeFazio as the lone rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Ore­gon who is opposed to giv­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma trade pro­mo­tion authority.

Like Larsen, Earl Blu­me­nauer has a page promi­nent­ly fea­tured on his web­site where he explains his posi­tion and responds to ques­tions. Suzanne Bonam­i­ci’s web­site does­n’t say any­thing about the loom­ing vote. A search yield­ed only one ref­er­ence to the TPP — this town hall recap from last autumn.

Schrader’s web­site has this state­ment con­firm­ing he’ll vote for fast-track dat­ing to last month. It’s not promi­nent­ly fea­tured on his web­site, but it is accessible.

Walden’s web­site has his state­ment from ear­li­er this week back­ing fast-track.

Peter DeFazio’s web­site has a num­ber of pages that dis­cuss fast-track and the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship, includ­ing this gem from April, in which DeFazio picks apart the trade pro­mo­tion author­i­ty the White House is sell­ing.

“Sup­port­ers of this bill will tell you it’s bet­ter than fast track deals of the past with pro­tec­tions for work­ers and the envi­ron­ment — don’t take the bait,” DeFazio says.  “It rein­forces the same failed trade poli­cies of the last 20 years that have earned mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions record prof­its and shipped good pay­ing Amer­i­can jobs over­seas.  Con­gress must not be used as a door­mat to pass bad trade deals. It’s the same raw deal for Amer­i­can work­ers and the environment.”

We’ll have a recap of the fast-track vote here once it takes place.