Recently, our former governor took a job as a “global ambassador” for the Boston 2024 Partnership. Although he’s now “volunteering” and not taking the $7,500 a day compensation package, I’m sure he’ll get a very generous expense account to use for his wining and dining of IOC commissioners.
However, lobbying the IOC isn’t his own gig now. He’s also lobbying for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal written by and for large corporations which the Obama administration has been aggressively pushing.
Deval Patrick was announced today as a member of the advisory board of the so-called Progressive Coalition for American Jobs, a front group run by former Obama aides. Here’s the Associated Press on the announcement:
President Obama’s allies are recruiting high-profile Democrats to help combat liberal resistance to his bid for new trade agreements in Asia and elsewhere.
The effort will sharpen differences between the Democratic Party’s liberal and pro-business wings, especially in New England. And it could accelerate the effort to woo black lawmakers, a key target in the House.
Heading a pro-trade advisory board being announced Tuesday are former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and former US. Trade Representative and Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk.
Kirk’s and Gregoire’s roles are not surprising. But Patrick’s might add some sizzle to the trade debate heating up in Congress. Among the Obama trade agenda’s strongest critics is another Massachusetts Democrat, Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Patrick and Kirk are two of the nation’s most prominent African-American politicians. Obama has openly wooed the Congressional Black Caucus in hopes of securing some of the House Democratic votes he will need to pass his trade plans.
I wrote about the “Progressive Coalition for American Jobs” two weeks ago at the Daily Kos. It’s the Democratic-aligned PR firm behind Democrat-in-name-only Ro Khanna’s congressional campaign against Mike Honda (CA-17) and Educators for Excellence, a Gates-funded front group that advocates against teacher tenure and for teacher evaluation systems that rely on the use of standardized test scores.
Elizabeth Warren has spoken eloquently and forcefully against the lack of transparency around the TPP text and the particularly pernicious investor-state dispute settlement provision, which would further entrench corporate power. Here’s Warren last month in an op-ed in the Washington Post:
ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here’s how it would work. Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.
Beyond that entrenchment of corporate power, the Trans-Pacific Partnership would further the trend toward monopolization, as Paul Krugman explained a few weeks ago:
What the T.P.P. would do, however, is increase the ability of certain corporations to assert control over intellectual property. Again, think drug patents and movie rights.
Is this a good thing from a global point of view? Doubtful. The kind of property rights we’re talking about here can alternatively be described as legal monopolies. True, temporary monopolies are, in fact, how we reward new ideas; but arguing that we need even more monopolization is very dubious — and has nothing at all to do with classical arguments for free trade.
Now, the corporations benefiting from enhanced control over intellectual property would often be American. But this doesn’t mean that the T.P.P. is in our national interest. What’s good for Big Pharma is by no means always good for America.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Trade Promotion Authority (commonly called “fast track”) that Obama wants for it, has faced heavy criticism from environmental and labor groups.
You can read a letter from environmental groups like 350.org, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch, Greenpeace USA, and Clean Water Action (among many others) here.
You can read the letter from a large group of labor organizations against fast-track authority here.
You can read the letter that the AFL-CIO, Citizens Trade Campaign, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the National Farmers Union, Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters just sent to Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, here.
I always thought it meant speed through the Senate without amendments, reservations, carve-outs, etc. I actually think all treaties should be treated that way because other countries need to know what to expect. I also think that such a procedural consideration should not be bogged down on the merits of the agreement. If Senators don’t like this or any other treaty, they would still be free to vote it down on final passage, right?
This is an immensely complicated set of issues, and others here may well be better placed to go into the weeds than I am. But the quick and dirty explanation is that even if there were a general consensus that you were right, these trade deals aren’t the kind of treaty that the Constitution is designed to address, or that the Executive ought to be able to bind us to on its own initiative. There’s too much addressed by them, in too much obscure detail; they’re negotiated in secrecy with the participation of selected industry insiders and without any public oversight; there’s no good way out of them if the Senate signs off and there turns out to be a big problem with one or more of the provisions.
There’s simply no way under a fast-track process for even the most dedicated senator to actually know what’s in one of these things or what it does, or to call attention to issues that might be resolvable in what might otherwise be a worthwhile deal, or do anything besides either fall in line or declaring war on the whole treaty. Under these circumstances, and given the economic interests lining up behind the rights grabs and such that we expect to see in the TPP (if and when we ever do see it), the odds of the whole country being the losers are overwhelmingly high.
I remain wildly grateful to have a Senate delegation who we don’t have to explain this to, and who seem to be holding firm. I wish I could say the same of our ex-Governor.
On the advice side of advice and consent it seems certain appropriate Senators should be directly involved in negotiations. I understand why there my be need to negotiate behind closed doors, but the resulting product should be clear. Plus, this is a government function, not an industry one. If public comment is offered and affected industries participate, great, but they should not have seats at the actual negotiating table. If, OTOH, it is deemed appropriate to directly involve stakeholders then other stakeholders, such as labor for instance, need to have equal access. Once it hits the Senate I assume there would still be public hearings and floor debate. It’s just the amendments and exemptions I don’t like. I say take it or leave it and if there are too many questions, then vote it down. It’s not like we can’t afterwards say lets try this again. Finally I don’t understand why these can’t be addressed by Constitutional procedure. Our country has been negotiating trade treaties since the ink was barely dry.
If it were realistic to think that an up-or-down vote would lead to rejecting the whole treaty, I might reconsider. Though in a universe where that was a reasonably predictable result of coming back with a defective treaty, I would also suspect that there would have been participation by all stakeholders all along, as opposed to one-sided participation by special interests, by invitation only, with powerful efforts made to ensure no one else was even able to see a summary of the provisions under discussion. Which is not the universe we live in. You’re no doubt familiar with the infamous explanation about why the secrecy is necessary? The one that goes, “Because if people knew what was in it, we could never pass it?”)
We’ve been making trade treaties from the beginning of the country, sure. But we haven’t been doing bargains like this. And since we are, it seems to me that we are indeed dealing with it via Constitutional procedures: the Senate, which gets to determine how it reviews treaties, also gets to decide that it’s not going to agree in advance, sight unseen, to vote on a giant black box of provisions as such, without any ability to look hard at what’s in that box or to demand that some of it come out before the proposed agreement goes any further.
Would it be better if this whole deal had gone forward with all parties welcome to participate and with full Congressional oversight? Of course it would. But it didn’t, and treating it as if that had happened is a recipe for disaster.
Patrick has a future in politics. Our former governor is amazingly charismatic in person, but optics? Forget about it.
The TPP isn’t the same as getting $7500 a day for selling the Olympics, but so much for his progressive credentials.
Senators wouldn’t be able to come up with a veto proof majority. The TPP will appeal to at least several Democratic senators.
Deval is making clear he isn’t interested in a future in politics, save as a Rahmish type of guy. A better governor than former governor, by early indications.
There are ways to cash in on earlier service that aren’t as seamy.
Per Wikileaks, the Investment Chapter working draft. I hope and trust that Senator Warren and her staff are reviewing it as we speak.
Not much of a spoiler: It really doesn’t look like a deal we ought to be touching. Or that our former governor ought to be shilling for.