House Democrats, still angry over President Obama’s late lobbying efforts on his trade agenda, were left fuming Tuesday night at the idea that Obama might accept a GOP plan to pass a narrower trade bill over Democratic objections.
Plans were fluid late Tuesday but GOP sources said Republicans were considering a plan to give Obama “fast track” authority to negotiate expedited trade agreements, and to amend a separate Senate bill to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, to workers who lose their jobs because of trade.
But separating the two bills would leave open the chance that only fast track would survive and head to Obama’s desk for his signature.
Such a scenario would be an affront to Democrats, and one aimed at getting around the Democratic strategy of blocking TAA in order to block fast track. Republicans were working with a few pro-trade Democrats and the White House on this strategy, and it was already clear Tuesday that some Democrats would be deeply disappointed with Obama — to put it politely — if he went along with the plan.
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“I think he would really, really piss off the majority of his party” if he went along with such a scenario, said Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., one of the most conservative members of the Congressional Black Caucus who sometimes votes with Republicans, but opposes fast track.
“This is all a dark, dark time for the nation if the president does that dirty deed,” he said on the possibility that Obama could support a fast-track bill without a TAA component.
Scott went further by saying it would smack of a dictatorship and violate the Constitution if Obama were to accept fast track in this way.
“If [Obama] goes ahead and signs it — I mean to bypass Congress after an overwhelming vote of 302 to 126 — not only is it a violation of the Constitution … only a dictator would do that,” he said. “We’re not a dictatorship.”
Other Democrats bristled at the idea of separating the two pieces to get Obama the victory that they have so far denied him.
“If you view us on the one-yard line again on this, as I view us on, it was clearly a poorly conceived decision to separate these two things,” Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., told reporters. “That was a mistake in hindsight — obviously. But people should have followed this through and put them back together.”
Delaney pointed to the bipartisan Senate vote in late May on a bill that included a six-year renewal of fast track with $450 million in assistance for communities hard-hit by the negative impact of global trade pacts.
Other Democrats suggested that linking fast track and TAA was where lawmakers erred in the first place, since it’s a tough package for Democrats to accept.
“The decision to link TPA to TAA was a political decision that I’m not sure who was responsible for that — but it was the death knell for Democrats to load down something we always supported with extraneous matters and to attach it to something as explosive as TPA,” said Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga. “It is a disservice to the workers in the communities that would be helped by TAA.”
Some Democrats indicated they are counting on Senate Democrats to block a plan to pass fast track without TAA, possibly filibustering a stand-alone fast track bill.
“I have my doubts that the Senate would allow that,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a longtime opponent of trade deals, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Republicans move forward with the plan, and said he tried to tell his Democratic colleagues last week that it might come down to this.
“Surprise — I’m not surprised,” he said. “I made that argument initially that we should not risk one without the other. I was persuaded [by Democratic leaders] that one could not exist without the other, but I am now back to my original argument.”
So far, the White House has been coy about whether it would be fine with just a fast-track bill, but didn’t rule out that Obama might sign that narrower measure.
“At this point, I don’t want to go into the legislative options that are being discussed by a wide variety of members of Congress,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday. “There are some that have been proposed that are non-starters in the view of the White House.”
“But rather than shooting down all the bad ideas, we’ll allow those conversations to take place, and once we have a more coherent plan to present about a legislative path forward, then that’s something that we can discuss in more detail,” he added.
Earnest went on to sing the praises of TAA and the president’s record in supporting it. But the since Friday’s vote, the president has only spoken to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, not Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a possible sign the White House may not need her as badly if it just wants fast track.
This story was updated at 7:43 a.m., Wednesday.
