We have only just begun to fight the TPP
Jim Dean, Democracy for America
The U.S. Senate just voted last night to approve the bill giving the White House the power to Fast Track the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
That's the bad news. Here's the good news: thanks in part to the more than 165,000 Democracy for America members who have taken action to stop the TPP, the bill doesn't have the votes to pass in the House. That's according to the Washington Trade Daily:
Key House Republicans acknowledged they will not be able to pass TPA [the Fast Track bill] without Democratic support.
There is a substantial-enough block of Republicans inclined to oppose TPA, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) told reporters yesterday at a press conference organized by Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).
How many Democratic "yes" votes will be needed is not clear, Mr. Salmon said. But he added that "this is going to be a really heavy lift."
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.
Democrats haven't yet provided enough votes to pass the Fast Track bill. That means we can win this battle -- if we can convince Democrats to stand with American workers against the big corporations.
Your work helped delay the Fast Track bill for longer than anyone thought possible, and helped make the Senate vote closer than expected. With your help, we can win an outright victory in the House.
When we first started this battle back in January, the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C. was that the Fast Track bill was certain to pass the Senate by a wide margin. Everyone expected the bill would pass in February or March.
That's not how things turned out. DFA members like you put intense pressure on Senator Ron Wyden, the Democrat leading the effort to pass the Fast Track bill. That delayed the entire process by almost two months.
Then, you stood with Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders to fight this job-killing trade deal. You helped defeat the first cloture vote on the Fast Track bill. You got all but 13 Democratic Senators to vote against cloture the second time.
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 are just getting started. All the work DFA members have done on the TPP has stiffened the spines of our allies in the House. We can win this fight. Are you in?
Chip in $3 or more today to help DFA build the campaign to stop the TPP in the House.
Thank you for helping fight the TPP.
- Jim
Jim Dean, Chair
Democracy for America
