How the White House failed on trade by ignoring Hill Democrats for years

President Barack Obama, with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi at his side, walks from a meeting room last week after making a last-ditch appeal to House Democrats to support a package of trade bills vital to his Asian policy agenda. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

In November 2013, a total of 151 House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama telling him they would not support fast-track authority for any international trade deal. That power, which the president is still seeking, would allow Obama to agree to any trade agreement without Congress being able to amend it.

Last week, 157 House Democrats voted against giving Obama fast-track authority and 144 House Democrats blocked a provision they favored — to provide compensation for American workers who lose their jobs as a result of international trade — in order to ensure that the entire trade package would go down.

Those numbers alone tell a focused story of sustained opposition to one of the president’s top policy priorities for the fourth quarter of his administration. But the frantic effort from Obama himself, making two rare visits to House Democrats within 12 hours last week, underscored a messier and larger reality: Since Republicans took over the House in 2011, the White House has struggled to foster relationships with its Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

Depending on which congressional Democratic aide you asked in the aftermath of the president’s last-minute lobbying last week, the Obama administration either steadily ignored criticism from its own party on the issue or was deluded into thinking it could change the minds of members who had opposed such a deal for years just by sending the president to Capitol Hill to say hello.

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California has often walked the plank for the president on policies her caucus has opposed or has been skeptical of — from the 2011 Budget Control Act, which enacted trillions of dollars in spending cuts, to 2014’s year-end spending bill, which kept the government open but weakened Wall Street and campaign finance reforms in the process. In many cases, Obama has negotiated around Hill Democrats, teaming with Republicans to find solutions to problems largely of Congress’ own making, such as a series of funding and program “cliffs” and crises, and then turned to those same Democrats in order to push these critical bills to fund the government or increase the nation’s borrowing authority over the finish line.

It appears that Friday’s visit from Obama — when he talked to House Democrats for about 45 minutes, taking no questions and telling members who opposed the trade deal (which clearly was a majority of them) that they were wrong — was the last straw. Pelosi took to the floor to say she would vote against Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a top party priority, in order to prevent the larger deal from going through. The Senate, led by Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, had paired the TAA bill with the more controversial fast-track trade legislation in order to gain Democratic votes. With Pelosi’s announcement, the whole tenuous deal fell apart.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, left, had tried to push the trade deal quickly through the Senate. (Photo: Susan Walsh/AP)

The president, who wanted one of the last big legislative victories of his tenure, and McConnell, who needed a big bipartisan policy victory he could point to as an example of the GOP’s ability to govern, had tried to push trade legislation through quickly and are now without a deal in hand or a path forward to securing one.

On Tuesday, House Republicans bought themselves time by extending the calendar during which the trade measures comprising the president’s package can be considered. What will happen in that time remains very much in doubt.

A history of dissent

A 2013 letter from House Democrats, led by Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and since-retired member George Miller of California, outlined basic concerns with the potential trade deal and the mechanisms to approve it. Those concerns have remained unchanged.

“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. Given our concerns, we will oppose ‘Fast Track’ Trade Promotion Authority or any other mechanism delegating Congress’ constitutional authority over trade policy that continues to exclude us from having a meaningful role in the formative stages of trade agreements and throughout negotiating and approval processes,” Democrats wrote.

“Twentieth Century ‘Fast Track’ is simply not appropriate for 21st Century agreements and must be replaced. The United States cannot afford another trade agreement that replicates the mistakes of the past. We can and must do better.”

Though that letter received attention because of the sheer number of its signatories, it was hardly the first time the Obama administration had heard from Democrats concerned with the issue. DeLauro, a close ally of Pelosi, sent a letter to then-U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk in November 2011 expressing concerns about the TPA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership with regard to food safety. DeLauro sent another letter in 2012, with bipartisan signatories, further outlining public health concerns.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., left, was among top Democrats who voiced concerns about fast-tracking trade legislation. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In a post Monday on the social media website Medium, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of the most vocal progressive voices against the trade deal, echoed almost every concern raised in previous letters sent to the administration by House Democrats, showing just how consistent those concerns have been but also how long the White House avoided addressing them.

“The newest trade proposal before us, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, repeats the harmful practices of past deals. It contains specific threats to working people. I will continue to vote against Trade Promotion Authority until the Trans-Pacific Partnership is fixed,” Ellison wrote. “If hurting workers wasn’t bad enough, several parts of the proposed deal risk our environment, the safety of our food and drugs, and even our nation’s laws.”

Multiple Democratic aides consulted for this story said that many of their letters and questions to the administration on the trade agreement have gone unanswered.

Though Obama’s session with House Democrats on Friday was highly publicized, it also was just the latest in a series of meetings where top administration officials failed to assuage, or even acknowledge, members’ concerns. On Thursday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew made the same pitch to members — that they were wrong about the implications of international trade agreements.

“The president came in and tried to make members with concerns feel like their concerns aren’t real,” said one Democratic aide familiar with the meeting. “They chose a very narrow path to victory, to secure Republican support and to tell people against them that they weren’t going to talk to us.”

According to another House source, Pelosi encouraged House Speaker John Boehner to pull the trade bill last week when he didn’t have enough Republican votes to move it on his own. By not doing so, Boehner exposed the serious rift between Democrats but also showed that there is no clear way to complete work on the bills.

What’s next?

In a letter to fellow Democrats after the failed vote, Pelosi noted that finding a long-term legislative fix to domestic infrastructure spending should be done before the House votes again on trade. The current highway bill, which has now gone through dozens of short-term extensions, expires in July. Pelosi would like to see a six-year reauthorization of the program to avoid the constant clifflike deadlines that keep infrastructure projects across the country in spending limbo as Congress struggles to act.

When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she would vote against Trade Adjustment Assistance in order to prevent a larger trade agreement from going through, the whole deal fell apart. (Photo: Susan Walsh/AP) 

But no aides would say whether moving on the infrastructure bill first would actually clear the way for congressional passage of the trade deals, especially if the agreements remain unchanged and the White House refuses to work with members of Congress.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest has repeatedly referred to the failed House votes Friday as a “procedural snafu,” even though House Democrats have opposed the trade agreement in its current form since 2011. He would not confirm whether the president had conversations with any House members over the weekend. And he did not bring up potential points of compromise between the administration and congressional Democrats.

Under the new rule, the House now has until the end of July to reconsider the stalled bills. But if no substantive changes are made, House Democratic support for the trade measures is likely to stay where it’s been for five years: barely there.