WASHINGTON -- Democrats handed President Barack Obama a defeat on his trade agenda, blocking final passage of fast-track negotiating authority just hours after he made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to seek their support.
In a 302-126 vote Friday, Democrats helped reject a displaced workers' aid program they usually support that was needed to proceed to a final vote on fast-track authority. The House then quickly voted for the fast-track measure, 219-211, though it won't go to Obama's desk unless the worker-aid bill also passes. The four Republicans from Arkansas voted against the workers' aid program and for the fast-track measure.
The House plans to vote again on the aid measure Tuesday. Passage would send the trade package to Obama.
"The president has some work yet to do with his party; this isn't over yet," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said at a news conference after the vote.
The fast-track measure, passed by the Senate in May, would let Obama submit trade agreements to Congress for an expedited, up-or-down vote without amendments. It would give Obama and the next president expedited trade negotiating authority for six years.
Obama's administration -- and the president personally -- lobbied for months for expedited trade negotiating authority, saying it is needed to advance trade agreements that will keep the U.S. competitive with overseas rivals. Obama is seeking to complete a pact with 11 other Pacific Rim nations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Only 40 Democrats voted for the aid bill minutes after Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced her opposition, and 144 voted no.
"We need to slow this 'fast track' down," Pelosi said.
Pelosi had been seen as a silent ally to Obama and Republicans running the House in promoting Obama's trade agenda, though she kept her position secret until the end of Friday's debate. She made clear in a floor speech that she's open to supporting future trade legislation, noting that she represents a San Francisco district that thrives on trade and that she grew up in Baltimore, home of a thriving port.
"I was hopeful from the start of all of this discussion that we could find a path to 'yes' for the fast-track legislation that was being put forth -- some bumps in the road along the way; some potholes along the way; unfortunately, I think, sinkholes as well," Pelosi said. "But that doesn't mean that that road cannot be repaired. I just believe that it must be lengthened.
"Our people would rather have a job than trade assistance," said Pelosi. "Whatever the deal is with other countries, we want a better deal for America's workers."
Her opposition drew praise from labor unions, liberals and others who say free-trade deals send U.S. jobs abroad. Pelosi added possible new burdens to the legislative package, saying new highway funding and "environmental justice" should be linked to its passage if it's revived.
House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said the vote on the fast-track measure shows it will pass one way or another, and that Democrats should realize they need to save the worker-aid program they have supported in the past.
The Democrats "took a hostage they now realize they can't afford to shoot," said House Republicans' chief vote counter, Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
After the vote, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y. and a trade bill supporter, said his party has an obligation to pass the worker-aid plan.
"It's unfathomable to me that we end up in a place where a trade bill passed" without it, Israel said. "This has not been among our finest two hours."
Trade bill opponent Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said plans for Tuesday's vote give Democrats an opportunity for a "substantive" conversation on how to shape the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. If talks were successful, he said he could change his vote on worker aid.
Pro-trade forces now must either reverse the retraining program's fate or send a revised fast-track bill back to the Senate. GOP aides said more Republicans might possibly hold their noses and vote for the training in order to save fast-track, a mirror-image of the Democrats' counter intuitive strategy.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday's vote showed congressional support for fast-track legislation, and "our work is not done yet." As for Democrats rejecting the retraining program, he said, the administration will contend "they have registered their objections to [the fast-track bill] and it didn't work." Earnest said the administration will urge Democrats to "support a policy that they have strongly supported in the past."
Obama went to Capitol Hill for a private meeting Friday morning with House Democrats to push for passage of the trade measures. Afterward, several members said they still weren't persuaded.
"If anyone could have changed our minds," it would have been the president, said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who opposes the measures. The president spoke eloquently, but "a majority of our caucus does not agree with him on this issue," Sherman said. "We just disagree."
In a sign of the push, earlier Friday Earnest forwarded a Twitter posting by Obama's ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, who wrote, "My dad, JFK, was for free trade. Democrats today should be too."
In an unusual alliance, most Republicans were backing Obama. Many Democrats remain stung by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which labor unions blame for a decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Obama sent top government officials including Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew to the Capitol a day earlier to plead for House Democrats' votes.
The defeat is a blow for Obama because trade was an area where he had seen opportunity for support from Republicans, who this year took control of the Senate as well as the House, where they already had a majority. Obama had spoken with optimism as the congressional session began about trade being a bright spot where he and Republicans agreed something had to be done.
It was Obama's own party that dealt him the defeat on trade, siding instead with labor unions and environmental groups that have urged caution on expanding trade, saying it would cost U.S. jobs.
Obama has said that without fast-track authority, reaching trade agreements with Pacific or European nations will be unlikely.
Obama has said U.S. products must reach more markets. He said unions and others should stop harping on perceived harm from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many critics accuse of shipping American jobs overseas.
Globalization, technological advances and other changes in the past 20 years, Obama has said, make expanded trade essential.
Friday's voting procedure was worked out between Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Pelosi. It allowed a vote on the fast-track trade bill that would send it on its way only if the House first passed the measure providing aid to workers who lose their jobs to foreign competition.
The worker-assistance program typically is supported by Democrats and opposed by most Republicans. Some Democrats decided to defeat it because that would stop the vote on Obama's trade negotiating authority. The move would be worth it even though $450 million in aid for workers would be lost, some lawmakers said.
"There are plenty of those who feel that's not such a bad price to pay for saving American jobs," Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said Thursday.
Republicans also confronted opposition within their ranks to the trade package from members who wouldn't approve anything strengthening Obama's hand in international negotiations.
"As a Republican, free trade would be a great concept, but the folks back home have absolutely no faith and confidence in this president," Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas said Thursday.
Information for this article was contributed by Carter Dougherty, Erik Wasson, James Rowley, Peter Cook, Billy House, Sahil Kapur, Angela Greiling Keane, Justin Sink and Kathleen Miller of Bloomberg News and by Andrew Taylor, Charles Babington, Erica Werner, David Espo, Darlene Superville, Jim Kuhnhenn, Alan Fram and Laurie Kellman of The Associated Press.
A Section on 06/13/2015