John Nichols: Freshmen Favor Fair Trade (The Nation)

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BLOG | Posted 01/18/2007 @ 5:29pm
Freshmen Favor Fair Trade


In case anyone missed the fact that the new Democrats who were elected to the House in November are economic populists who the free trade policies advanced by the Bush administration and the White House's allies in the Democratic Leadership Council, 39 Democratic members of the freshman class have signed a letter reminding party leaders in the chamber that, "Vital to our electoral successes was our ability to take a vocal stand against the Administration's misguided trade agenda, and offer our voters real, meaningful alternatives to the job-killing agreements, such as CAFTA, that the majority of our opponents supported."

The letter, which was sent this week to House Ways & Means Committee chair Charles Rangel, D-New York, who will be a key player in defining the new majority's approach to trade policy, explains that, "It is very important that we not only reverse the troubling results of the administration's trade agreements and trade policies, but also that we are able to deliver on the promise we made to our constituents to move our nation in a new and improved direction on trade."

In the old Republican-dominated House, the Bush administration and its allies were able to secure approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement by a mere two votes -- and that "victory" was secured only after applying extreme pressure to a handful of Republican holdouts against the plan.

The firm commitment of the Democratic freshmen to fight for fair-trade policies that favor workers, the environment and communities, as opposed to the race-to-the-bottom free-trade policies of the Bush administration and its Democratic allies, should signal a radical shift in direction. There is no longer anything akin to a pro-free trade majority in the House.

The new signal from the House is being echoed in the Senate, where veteran critics of the Clinton and Bush administration's free-trade policies, such as Ohio's Democrat Sherrod Brown and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, have joined a chamber that approved CAFTA by a relatively narrow 54-45. Brown, Sanders and other new senators such as Virginia Democrat Jim Webb have arrived as replacements for Republicans who voted with the administration on trade issues. Webb, who complains about "our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century," says that changing trade policy to protect workers and communities is essential work for the new Congress.

The rest of the article is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=158747