[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12705]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        NO LAMEDUCK VOTE ON TPP

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to call on Congress to rule 
out an end-of-the-year lameduck end-run vote on the Trans-Pacific 
Partnership.
  No other time in the Congress is less accountable to the people who 
entrust us to represent their interests than the period between 
election and the swearing in of a new Congress in January. That is why 
it is called lameduck.
  Retiring Members or those who lost elections still have a say. And 
whose interests are they more likely to represent?
  Sometimes corporate interests weigh in with tantalizing offers of 
high-dollar remuneration on their retirement. Or for those fresh off an 
election, a lameduck can present pressures from donors who funded their 
campaigns.
  In 2000, I watched this scenario play out when the permanent normal 
trade relations with China, unfortunately, passed. For China's PNTR 
vote, look at Texas. The President secured at least five Members' votes 
by promising an environmental cleanup of a military factory, a study on 
job losses due to imports, and finalized an EPA study for a pipeline.
  And what happened to those promises?
  Nothing. In fact, the factory closed with the district losing 5,000 
jobs.
  Madam Speaker, we have been told time and again that free trade deals 
create jobs, but they outsource our jobs instead. Americans deserve a 
vote from accountable, elected Representatives. No lameduck TPP vote.

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