June 12, 2015, may well go down in history as the day President Obama became a lame duck. As we warned last month, he has only his fellow Democrats to blame.
On Friday, the president’s party delivered a stunning rebuke by derailing his Pacific free-trade initiative, despite Obama’s frantic last-minute personal lobbying.
And they did so by refusing to support a worker-protection provision that Democrats have backed for more than 40 years.
Only 40 House Democrats voted for Trade Adjustment Assistance, which lost by a lopsided 302-126 margin.
The House then proceeded to vote to grant Obama “fast track” authority to negotiate the overall Trans-Pacific Partnership. But that bill doesn’t go directly to the president’s desk — because it differs from the Senate-passed version, which includes the worker-protection measure.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made no bones about the fact that she was sticking with Democratic special interests — labor unions and the green lobby, which oppose the pact — over her party’s leader.
This, when Obama has called the trade deal central to his second-term legacy, as well as to his foreign policy and his economic agenda.
Pelosi announced her vote against the worker-protection bill, despite her support for the program, because “it’s the only way that we’ll be able to slow down the fast-track.”
House Speaker John Boehner says he’ll allow a re-vote on the worker-protection bill next week in hopes the White House can round up more votes. Pelosi suggests she and her allies might switch sides if they’re bribed with passage of a highway-funding bill.
Pork over principle, in other words.
Whatever happens, one thing is clear: When it comes to the Democrats’ agenda, Barack Obama isn’t in control.