House Defeats Pacific Trade Fast Track

The United States House of Representatives has defeated the fast track on the Pacific Trade Agreement.

This is what happens with Democrats and Republicans come together.

I’m sure that they voted together for different reasons. That’s the way things work, when they work. But the point is that the United States House of Representatives turned by the Imperial Presidency by voting no on the fast tracking of the Pacific Trade agreement.

This vote puts the trade agreement back on a normal path, where it can be amended and its contents can be discussed. I am entirely aware that many Republicans voted against fast-tracking simply because they saw it as an opportunity to embarrass the president. I am also aware that the Democrats voted against it because they wanted to preserve American jobs.

I am also aware, that the American people won this round, at least for now. That’s so unusual that it, alone is cause to celebrate. Now if we can just get Congress to realize that they can actually pass laws, even if they read them, discuss them and amend them like grown up lawmakers, we’ll really have a miracle.

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — House Democrats rebuffed a dramatic personal appeal from President Obama on Friday, torpedoing his ambitious push to expand his trade negotiating power — and, quite likely, his chance to secure a legacy-defining trade accord spanning the Pacific Ocean.

In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority — the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress — before it could even come to a final vote.

“We want a better deal for America’s workers,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader who has guided the president’s agenda for two terms and was personally lobbied by Mr. Obama until the last minute.

Republican leaders tried to muster support from their own party for trade adjustment assistance, a program they have long derided as an ineffective waste of money and sop to organized labor. But not enough Republicans were willing to save the program.