Odd Bedfellows Unite To Oppose Fast Track Authority For TPP, Others

Obviously, free trade makes for interesting political bedfellows. GOP Reps. Michele Bachmann and Walter Jones have joined together with liberal Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro to try to limit the White House's so-called authority to "fast-track" global trade treaties, a process that essentially rams pacts through the U.S. Congress on an up-or-down vote. No amendments, no nothing.

The trio is fervently gathering congressional signatures to prevent President Barack Obama from invoking his so-called Trade Promotion Authority in a rush to get the evolving 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal into stone by year's end. 

DeLauro, Jones and Bachmann maintain that Obama is deprieving Congress of its constitutional power of commerce regulations through his effort to fast-track international trade pacts. All three are trying to get their respective parties to join on.

Wrote DeLauro in a letter to her colleagues, according to Politico: “In light of the broad scope of today’s trade agreements, it is even more vital that Congress have a fulsome role in shaping these pacts’ terms.”
The move comes a few months after Rep. Mark Pocan circulated a similar plea that garnered the signatures of 36 freshman House Democrats.