I’m going to put this bluntly: If Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell vote for fast track authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I will be utterly convinced that they value their big money campaign donors more than they value the ordinary citizens they are supposed to represent. Every one of the “free” trade deals this country has entered into in the past 25 years has resulted in the loss of American jobs, the reduction of good wages here, and none of the promised upgrading of environmental and labor standards in the other countries involved. The main beneficiaries of these “deals” have been big international corporations.

Murray and Cantwell were not sent to Washington, D.C. to represent corporations. Voting for fast track will be a betrayal of their constituents. Rather, they should support Sens. Sanders’ and Warren’s call to present this wonderful trade deal to the American people and let them tell Congress what they think of it. After all, it is we who are bound by the deal. If Murray and Cantwell believe the American people would reject this deal if they got to see it, then they should be adamantly opposed to fast track and be working to either reject the deal outright or change it to an acceptable one. That’s their job. Not selling out the American people to big corporate interests. That job’s already been done.

Ken Dammand

Tulalip