[Infowarrior] - Senate Dems block TPP

[Richard Forno]

(Good!  Here's hoping this helps kill a deal that *nobody* outside of the WH knows anything about yet the WH claims is a must-have for the country.  Fingers crossed TPP does die, and soon...but in DC, you never know.  --rick)

Senate Democrats vote to block Obama on trade
By Mike DeBonis May 12 at 3:09 PM  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-threaten-to-stall-trade-legislation-in-the-senate/2015/05/12/08f71d66-f8c0-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html

President Obama’s fellow Democrats derailed one of his major second-term priorities Tuesday, voting to hold up consideration of “fast track” trade authority unless related measures are guaranteed to proceed alongside it.

The trade legislation failed an afternoon test vote, 52 to 45. Sixty votes were needed to begin formal debate of measures that would pave the way for approval of a complex Pacific trade accord and provide relief to unemployed workers affected by trade deals.

Ahead of the vote, many Democrats — including some of the handful who have supported Obama’s trade push — said they were not inclined to move forward with debate unless Republican leaders provided assurances that the various pieces would move in tandem.

About an hour before the vote, that included Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who negotiated the trade package with top Republicans in the House and Senate and who has been a rare ally of Obama’s trade agenda inside the president’s party.

“Until there is a path to get all four bills passed,” Wyden said after a lunchtime meeting with fellow pro-trade Democrats, “we will — certainly most of us — have to vote no.”

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that Republicans were willing to attach “trade adjustment assistance” — that is, funding authority for worker assistance programs — to the fast-track bill. But he made no pledge to include a trade enforcement bill — which would, among other things, take aim at Chinese currency ma­nipu­la­tion and is opposed by the administration — or a fourth bill concerning trade with Africa.

McConnell said those provisions could be attached by amendment to the bills under consideration. “This is a vote to begin a process,” he said on the Senate floor. “This is a vote to begin a debate on a broad trade agenda.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the Senate’s fiercest opponents on trade, said late Monday that the vote to proceed would fail unless Republicans made a more solid commitment to take up the related bills.

“It’s a betrayal of workers and small business in our communities to pass fast track, to put it on the president’s desk without enforcement . . . and without helping workers,” Brown said. “It’s a betrayal of what we should be standing for.“

But Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Monday that there was “no compromise that can be reached that is going to link all four bills together.”

“That isn’t going to happen,” he said. “If that happens, it’s over.”

Hatch, who negotiated with Wyden, the committee’s top Democrat, for months over the trade legislation, betrayed some frustration at the Democratic demands.

“We think we can come up with a way of doing this,” he said. “I’ve been disappointed with some of the approaches that have been taken over the last weekend, but we’ll iron that all out, I hope.”

At the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest played down reports about the struggles of the fast-track legislation as merely a “procedural snafu” — a phrase he repeated about a dozen times — that could be worked out in the coming days. Earnest said the trade legislation remains a top priority for Obama and pledged that White House aides would continue to lobby lawmakers.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), the majority whip, said the expected vote was a “failure of the president’s ability to convince members of his own party” and urged Obama to do more to convince wavering Senate Democrats.

Earnest said, “I would withhold judgment about the president’s persuasion abilities until we’ve had a chance to advance this legislation through.”

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It's better to burn out than fade away.