'Fast Track' Squeaks In Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - portside list at yahoogroups.com The Nation.com - December 6 2001 http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/ 'FAST TRACK' SQUEAKS IN Fast Track "win" could haunt Bush administration... and Democrats who sided with it By John Nichols In an agonizing Congressional defeat for foes of Bush White House's free-trade agenda, the House of Representatives voted Thursday afternoon to grant the president Fast Track trade negotiating authority by the narrowest possible margin -- one vote. The 215-214 vote for the Bush administration's top legislative priority was a bitter defeat for labor, environmental and human rights groups, which for months had battled to convince Congress to limit the ability of the administration to negotiate sweeping new free-trade pacts, including a hemispheric Free Trade Area of the Americas pact. Foes of the proposal wasted no time predicting the worst, now that Bush appears -- with Senate approval likely -- to be positioned to unilaterally make trade deals in regard to which Congress will retain only the power to approve or reject pacts that cannot be amended. "For the American people," said House Minority Whip David Bonior, D-Mich., "Fast Track will be a bullet train to the unemployment line." At the same time, leading foes of Fast Track and the entire corporate free-trade agenda suggested that the Bush administration -- which traded everything from concessions on citrus protections to support for new unemployment benefits to win Thursday's floor fight -- had effectively destroyed prospects for bipartisan consensus on trade issues. "Reviving the moldering corpse of Fast Track today relegates U.S. policymaking on globalization to an outdated, inappropriate process that guarantees increased public and congressional opposition to future trade deals," complained Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch and a leader of two successful fights against Fast Track in the 1990s. "For the Bush administration, the cost of a short-term gain on this vote is a long-term standstill on U.S. trade policy. The heated, partisan debate and narrow passage of Fast Track vaporizes the crumbling remains of the bipartisan consensus on trade and guarantees that future trade agreements negotiated by the administration will be met with great skepticism." Wallach was referring to the fact that the Fast Track vote broke along more starkly partisan lines than most previous trade policy fights. The Bush administration and Republican Congressional leadership lobbied intensely for support from House Republicans and, by and large, they got it. A number of GOP House members who had opposed free-trade proposals during the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton suddenly shifted to a pro-free trade stance. The partisan reshuffling saw Republicans such as Florida's Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Clinton-era foe of Fast Track, agree to support the scheme now that a member of their own party is in the White House. It was not quite so simple as Republican free traders versus Democratic fair traders, however. Of the 215 votes for Fast Track, 194 came from Republicans while just 21 came from Democrats. Of the 214 votes against, 189 came from Democrats, 23 from Republicans and two from the House's independent members. While loyalty to president and party played a big role in swinging Republican stalwarts into the pro-Fast Track camp, what explained the 21 Democrats who sided with the Bush administration? Some of the Democrats who provided Bush with this closest of victories were veteran free-trade advocates from conservative southern states -- such as Texas Democrats Ralph Hall and Ken Bentsen. (Bentsen's vote could hurt him as he seeks labor support in a Democratic primary for Texas' open U.S. Senate seat, however.) Among Democrats casting critical votes in favor of the Republican free-trade agenda were several members elected with strong labor support, including California's Susan Davis, a first-termer from the San Diego area, Indiana's Baron Hill and Arkansas' Vic Snyder. The decision of labor-tied Democrats to back the Bush trade agenda could yet haunt those members. Several of them now face the threat of determined challenges from Green Party members who say they will make an issue of the Fast Track vote. In Indiana's industrialized 9th District, for instance, Hill has already drawn a challenge from Green Jeff Melton, who says he will use the incumbent's vote for Fast Track to pry away support from unionized workers in the area's electronics and steel industries. "The American labor movement may be wedded to the Democratic Party, but it's an abusive relationship," says Melton. "So-called 'free trade' agreements supported by Democrats like Baron Hill have been a black eye for American workers, costing thousands of previously well-paid union workers here in the 9th District their livelihoods. Hill solicits campaign contributions from labor unions by pretending to be a friend of working people, but so far he's mainly been a friend to sweatshops and corporate polluters, not workers." ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-12.08.01-10:11:44-5989