Tell Congress to Support the Grayson Amendment - TODAY
Big news: there will be a vote TODAY on the Grayson Amendment, to lift the veil of secrecy over trade giveaways.
Here is the amendment, regarding appropriations for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative:
“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to negotiate or enter into a trade agreement whose negotiating texts are confidential.”
Call 202-224-3121, now, and tell your Representative to vote for the Grayson Amendment.
What does that mean? It means that trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership have to be revealed to the American People, not shoved down our throats.
Even Members of Congress have been jammed up over this. Here is what Sen. Barbara Boxer said about it, a month ago:
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., today blasted the secrecy shrouding the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
“They said, well, it’s very transparent. Go down and look at it,” said Boxer on the floor of the Senate. “Let me tell you what you have to do to read this agreement. Follow this: you can only take a few of your staffers who happen to have a security clearance — because, God knows why, this is secure, this is classified. It has nothing to do with defense. It has nothing to do with going after ISIS.” Boxer, who has served in the House and Senate for 33 years, then described the restrictions under which members of Congress can look at the current TPP text. “The guard says, ‘you can’t take notes.’ I said, ‘I can’t take notes?’” Boxer recalled. “‘Well, you can take notes, but have to give them back to me, and I’ll put them in a file.’ So I said: ‘Wait a minute. I’m going to take notes and then you’re going to take my notes away from me and then you’re going to have them in a file, and you can read my notes? Not on your life.’” Should we let our economic future be bargained away, in secrecy? “Not on your life.”
Don’t let secret trade deals deprive us of our future. Call 202-224-3121, and tell your Representative to vote for the Grayson Amendment.
Normally, our Government classifies information to keep it away from foreigners. But with these trade agreements, the foreigners have the information – it’s Congress and the American People who don’t.
The European Union has taken the entire “Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,” which our government claims is confidential, and posted it at a website. And WikiLeaks, to the embarrassment of our government, has done the same with parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Q. What other laws can be negotiated in secret?
A. None. Our Constitution does not allow for secret laws.
Three years ago, more than 100 Members of Congress wrote to the U.S. Trade Representative, and asked him to make the Trans-Pacific Partnership public. He refused.
Last month, President Obama said that “any critic” could see the full text of the agreement. So far, no one has.
The Trade Representative is treating Congress like a mushroom farm: Keep us in the dark, and spread fertilizer all over us.
The truth shall set us free. Call 202-224-3121, and tell your Representative to vote for the Grayson Amendment.
Today, there will be a vote on the Grayson Amendment. If you’ve ever felt like calling Congress, today is the day. Not tomorrow – that will be too late. Today.
It doesn’t matter whether your Congressman is a Democrat or a Republican. We just need 218 votes, whether they are red or blue. And you can help make it happen.
We really need to shed some light on this trade treachery. And as Justice Louis Brandeis said, “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”
In short, the public has a right to know. Help make that happen.
Courage,
Rep. Alan Grayson
We’re not gonna take it.
Never did, and never will.
We’re not gonna take it.
Gonna break it.
Gonna shake it.
Let’s forget it, better still.
- “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” The Who (1969).
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