Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to oppose the motion to invoke cloture on TPA, the so-called fast-track legislation. I am still incredulous, as I have watched this trade nondebate, if you will, at the speed at which, time after time, the majority leader has tried to shut down debate. It has happened again and again, and that is compounded by the secrecy of this whole process. I can't count the number of times in my State of Ohio and in meetings in Washington, with people from all over the country, that people have said we have little or no access to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. TPA, in the past--fast-track--has actually been sort of a rule book for how we should negotiate trade agreements and, at the same time, has been a direction on how to negotiate these trade agreements and a rule book on how it is presented on the Senate floor. Yet none of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations by Ambassador Froman have been informed at all by a TPA because we haven't had a TPA yet. We haven't even had an instruction booklet in the past. At the same time, we have gotten the worst of both worlds because we are voting on TPA, and we really haven't been able to see what is in TPP. I know supporters of TPP will say we are going to have 60 days now, but Members are casting their votes now--where 60 votes are required and they have maximum leverage-- to put no final point on it, just giving up the leverage they have as we are still kept in the dark on what is happening.…”