‘Fast track authority’ scheduled for vote Friday

A key part of President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP is now scheduled for a vote and the pressure on lawmakers is high.

But the Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track, isn’t guaranteed to pass.

The vote on TPA is tentatively scheduled for Friday. But there’s a whole lot of uncertainty as the clock ticks down.

A lot of deals and promises could affect the outcome and final shape of the bill. President Obama tried his best to influence local democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke’s vote last week by inviting ABC-7 anchor Estela Casas to the White House for an exclusive interview.

Obama wants fast track powers to make it easier for him to offer trade proposals that Congress can ratify or reject, but not change. If he gets it, he’s expected to push through the long-negotiated TPP with Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Australia and several other countries. Many democrats and labor organizations though fear trade deals eliminate jobs in the U.S.

One companion bill coming up would require the full text of the trade agreement to be made public before a vote even with fast track negotiating authority. Another would prohibit the president from changing immigration policy through trade agreements.

All of this could affect the outcome of the fast track vote. Various headcount estimates show the president with about 130 of the 217 votes he needs, nearly all of them republicans.

Around 160 members of Congress have come out against fast track authority, which leaves about 140 undecided, or at least unannounced, including southern New Mexico republican Steve Pearce and O’Rourke.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and the Trade Promotion Authority,” O’Rourke said in Washington last week, “or fast track authority which the president currently seeks are both incredibly important for the country, and especially for El Paso which is essentially a trade community. We estimate one in every four jobs in our community is connected to US- Mexico trade.”

That may sound like a hint, but O’Rourke is still officially uncommitted, and a vote in favor of the bill could bring big campaign money against him in the next election.

Speaking exclusively with Estela Casas last week, President Obama said that if TPA isn’t approved, “Well, it’s hard to negotiate if you think about it, You’re negotiating with ten other countries. If I don’t have the authority to be able to just present an agreement that’s been negotiated before Congress, it’s subject to all kinds of amendments and each member of Congress says, “Well, I want a little more of this or I want a little more of that.” You can imagine that you’d never actually get it done.”

With the stakes as they are, the vote on fast track could come down to the wire, and local congressmen will have a big role to play.

“My job as El Paso’s representative is to determine how both of these proposals will impact my community and by extension the rest of the country,” O’Rourke said. “So we’re certainly listening to the White House, and to the US trade representative, but we’re also more importantly listening to people in El Paso, people who are stakeholders in this who will be affected by the outcome.”

O’Rourke is listed by the Washington, D.C. political newspaper “The Hill” as one of the “top ten undecided house members to watch on trade.”

The Hill mentioned ABC-7’s exclusive interview with the president last week as a White House attempt to give O’Rourke some political cover in voting for TPP and fast track, against traditional democratic leanings.

O’Rourke is still playing it close to the vest, but the other Texas rep. for El Paso, republican Will Hurd, is out in favor of fast track. Representing a district stretching from the Mission Valley to just outside San Antonio, Hurd is supporting tpa, but isn’t willing to commit to the full trade agreement without seeing it.

The other congressman in the El Paso area, New Mexico’s Steve Pearce, has made statements generally in favor of free trade deals, but was still noncommittal about fast track authority last week.

“The TPP we’re pretty comfortable with,” Pearce said. “The TPA has still got a couple wrinkles in it. I’m a strong free trade supporter, but the process in the house is looking like there are questions going into the final votes on the bill, so I’m just letting the water clear just a bit”

With those two Borderland reps. and about 130 others in the House of Representatives not saying how they’ll vote, all eyes will be on the Capitol come Friday, to see if this first key part of the president’s trade package passes or not.