The battle over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and millions of jobs
will start in the New Year, for real. While we successfully delayed
introduction of fast track legislation to this point, all signs point to
bill introduction on January 7th or 8th.

The Obama administration is likely to come hard to pass this legislation.
Passing the TPP involves a legislative two-step: first ram through
fast-track authorization, then once Congress has surrendered its authority
to vote on amendments to the deal, ram through the deal. *It’s crucial to
defeat fast-track, and the best way to defeat the TPP is to prevent a vote
in the first place. *Without fast-track, the deal will never get a vote.
*First, we need to get a large number of phone calls in to our
representatives. That starts January 6th and 7th. Please get ready to
pound in calls.

We need to hold every one of our representatives who signed the
DeLauro/Miller letter as a no vote on fast-track for the TPP. (Most
congressional Democrats appear to be inclined to vote against fast-track,
at this time. We also need to win Republican votes.) We don’t know yet what
will be in the TPP or in the fast-track legislation, since it’s still a
secret deal, but we are certain that if fast-track is introduced, it will
be bad and we will be opposed.

*There will be a nationwide day of action on January 22nd where we will
target swing votes, strengthen our supporters, and protest our opponents.
*The politics on these insane trade agreements, which are really about moving
money around the globe much more easily to cut wages and regulatory
protections, are tangled.

The Obama administration is pushing for a trade agreement that benefits the
global elite over the rest of us. The U.S. Senate, historically no friend
of working people, will pass fast-track and the TPP. We can stop this
agreement in the House of Representatives, even though it’s controlled by
Republicans, and the large majority of Republicans will vote for fast-track
and the TPP. We will need almost all Democrats and some Republicans.
(there is conservative tea-party opposition to this deal and anything the
Obama admin does, which helps here).

While we’ve done really well in recent elections, particularly in New York
City with DeBlasio’s election, on a federal level things are still very
rough We’ve done also very strong work nationally on the TPP along with
our allies, enough to delay into the new year.

It’s very unlikely a floor vote would come before February. We want to make
this so hot, they won’t want to vote it. Any vote on fast-track is likely
to be extremely close: every vote in Congress will count. There will (most
likely) be enormous pressure from Republican leadership and the Obama
administration to vote for fast-track. We defeated fast-track legislation
under both Bush and Clinton. We can do it again. More information about our
mobilization to come soon, please get ready for beginning large numbers of
phone calls on January 6th and 7th.