CAFTA Facing Problems

David Sirota? Thomas Frank? Your ship has come in:

Traditionally pro-business and pro-trade House Democrats have announced plans to vote against the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, a stance putting at risk support from the rapidly growing high-tech community, one of the few major industries that continue to give substantial backing to Democratic candidates.

The four co-chairmen of the 40-member House New Democrat Coalition have declared their opposition to the agreement, provoking an outcry from high-tech lobbying groups. The opposition is a major setback for the Bush administration, which is struggling to get House and Senate votes on the agreement before the Fourth-of-July congressional recess.

Notice the first-graf warning that the move would be viewed unfavorably within the high-tech community. Either Republican strategists wanted to scare some Democrats or high tech lobbyists wanted their feelings known, but someone was trying to spin this and hard. In any case, props to the New Democrats for denying another Bankruptcy Bill debacle and uniting in opposition to CAFTA. And take that first paragraph to heart -- it explains exactly why our current system of campaign finance system is broken. Legislators should be able to judge bills on their merits, not on the likely financial response of industry lobbies.

Update: Interesting. My first read of the article was too flip. Democrats were denied access to the formation of the treaty and there's some speculation that it was written in order to provoke Democratic opposition and thus divorce Democrats from tech money. This is a classic Rove strategy, much like when he forced Democrats to vote against a principle they supported (The Dept. of Homeland Security) by arming it with a poison pill they had to oppose (the destruction of worker protections) in order to make them look soft on national security. I have trouble believing the high tech industry is so stupid as to be pawns in this, but you never know.