Sen. Marco Rubio cast the deciding vote for Obamatrade on Tuesday as it squeeked through the U.S. Senate 60-37, and his Senate office is still outright refusing to answer whether he even knew what he was voting on.
Rubio, a Republican presidential candidate, was the deciding vote necessary for the U.S. Senate to clear the final 60-vote threshold and eventually, later this week, send to President Barack Obama’s desk the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) bill that would fast-track at least three highly secretive trade deals that Obama has been negotiating for years.
TPA will, now that it’s going to pass, effectively ensure the congressional approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). The text of the TiSA and T-TIP agreements is currently entirely secretive, even to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and their staffs, though WikiLeaks did uncover several TiSA documents that leaked and prove the deal would surrender congressional power over U.S. immigration policy to the executive branch and perhaps to a newly created transnational entity.
The TPP text for the Pacific Rim trade deal that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) notes would give the Sultan of Brunei—who has implemented Sharia Law in his nation and banned Christmas, literally—an “equal vote to that of the United States,” on the other hand, is available for members of Congress to read. The only catch is they have to go to a secret room inside the Capitol basement for classified readings to read it in person, they can’t take notes, and only their staffers with enough high enough security clearances can go with them to read it—and their staff can’t go without them.