Within only a week or so of announcing his run for US Senate Russ Feingold has come out strong against the Trans Pacific Partnership. Feingold is clear that trade deals like the TPP are written by and for corporations and not the workers who are stuck with whatever is negotiated.But not every Wisconsin Democrat feels the same way.
Last week 42 Wisconsin state Dem legislators sent a letter to Wisconsin’s congressional delegation calling on them to oppose the TPP and Fast Track Authority. Eight of our 50 Dem state legislators didn’t sign it. Why not?
Mark Taylor of the Daily Call suggests that five who didn’t sign, Reps Jill Billings, Steve Doyle and Chris Danou, and Senators Jennifer Shilling and Kathleen Vinehout, abstained so as not to ” out ” their Congressman, Ron Kind. Kind is aggressively supporting the TPP at community events around the 3rd CD. The other three who didn’t sign are Senators Julie Lassa, Janet Bewley and, most inexplicably, Fred Risser.
Given that Janet Bewley is my state Senator I called her office to see why she didn’t sign. One of her staffers told me that Senator Bewley has a policy of not signing such letters because she feels she wasn’t elected to tell congresspersons how to do their job. I don’t find that an acceptable rationale and told the staffer so.
A good friend of mine, Eleanor Wolf, called her state Senator, Kathleen Vinehout, and was told by one of her staffers that Vinehout didn’t sign the letter because she didn’t know what was in the TPP. I’m not making that up. Eleanor responded that because the TPP is being negotiated in secret and Fast Track Authority allows for no correction of the end result it was all the more imperative Senator Vinehout oppose it. The staffer said he’d pass that information along.
I’m of the mind that if a true progressive like Russ Feingold knows enough about the TPP to vigorously oppose it then any Democrat in Wisconsin who calls him or herself a progressive better oppose it too. 42 of our 50 Dem legislators have done just that. I’m waiting on the other eight.
If Kathleen Vinehout knows what’s in the TPP, she is in very select company. Even U.S. Senators don’t know what is there — how could a lowly state senator be privy to the information?
Why do you feel the need to ascribe another motive to her? Why isn’t Sen. Bewley’s answer sufficient for you?
Just contact the offices of Ron Kind, Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin. They are the ones who vote on it.
Joanne Brown,
42 Dem state legislators signed the letter. Eight did not. You’re asking questions of the wrong person. And you’re giving orders to the wrong guy.
Good callout Steve. No true Dem should support an unaccountable, job-killing sham like TPP, and the protection of Rep. Kind is especially weak. If Ronnie keeps on supporting this garbage, a primary challenge should be in order. Either that, or he should just announce for Governor in 2018, so he can’t pass any more bad trade deals in DC.
We need to send the message that selling out to corporations on something like this is unacceptable, and primaries are the best way to do that in a Blue seat like WI-3 is through the primary system .
Steve, thanks
From
@ddayen
How exactly do you soften wording on banning deals with slaveowners? “If they don’t *really* enslave workers…”
“But Hatch was concerned about a “killer” amendment to the bill which would potentially bar countries deemed soft on human trafficking from the expedited treatment, and was looking to the Obama administration for a solution.
TOP partner Malaysia is on the U.S. 2014 list of human-trafficking offenders.
The White House has said it is looking at the amendment, drafted by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez. A spokesman for Menendez, who plans a news conference on Tuesday, said negotiations were continuing over the wording of the amendment.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-senator-vows-to-stay-as-long-as-it-takes-for-fast-track-trade-bill-2015-5 …
Sounds like Malaysia is leading the pack to replace China, plenty of room for forced and child labor.
@ddayen
The AFL-CIO report on the silly fiction that TPP will “contain China” is a surgical dismantling:
http://www.aflcio.org/content/download/156731/3897641/file/TPPChinaReport.pdf …
If foreign workers can’t afford to buy our exports…..
totally ridiculous to make this a state issue.
agree that calls to congress and ROJO are whats needed.
communications from state leggies are just fluff…
lord knows they have real issues to spend their time on that hopefully they can affect.