This piece first appeared at Web of Debt.
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.
— Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in
elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders
exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers,
James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its
powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . .
.”
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill
to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade
agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand
judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of
corporate lawyers.
The secretive TPP is an agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan,
Singapore and seven other countries that affects 40% of global markets.
Fast-track authority could now go to the full Senate for a vote as early
as next week. Fast-track means Congress will be prohibited from
amending the trade deal, which will be put to a simple up or down
majority vote. Negotiating the TPP in secret
and fast-tracking it through Congress is considered necessary to secure
its passage, since if the public
had time to review its onerous
provisions, opposition would mount and defeat it.
