Democrats in Congress are in open warfare with President Barack Obama over his pitch for fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, but conservative dissenters are conducting their fight quietly behind closed doors — even though they may be the key to approving the deal.

So far, about 40 to 45 of the 245 House Republicans, most of them in the far-right wing, are hard “nos” on a bill their own party leaders support as fervently as Obama, according to the independent assessments of three House aides. If they are able to boost their numbers by even a handful of votes, it would imperil the legislation, which passed the Senate late Friday, because Democrats are expected to provide at most 25 “yeas” toward the 217 votes needed for passage.


But while Democratic opponents and their allies in the labor movement are raising the specter of lost manufacturing jobs if the massive Asia-Pacific trade deal and an even bigger pact with the European Union are approved, a number of conservative dissenters have rallied around their worry about giving Obama too much power.

Under the fast-track bill, Congress would surrender the right to amend the final trade deals and agree to give them up-or-down votes.

“I’m concerned about giving this president the authority” to negotiate such deals, explained Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who heads the roughly 40-member House Freedom Caucus and is a powerful conservative voice within the House Republican Conference. “I would think a majority of the House Freedom Caucus now is opposed to it for a variety of reasons,” the Ohio Republican added moments after standing next to House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling last week to call for an end to the Export-Import Bank. Jordan noted his caucus has not taken an official position on the bill and some of its members are undecided.

Indeed, lawmakers on the right who see eye to eye on many issues are divided over the trade promotion authority legislation. On the pro-side stand members like Sen. Ted Cruz and Hensarling, both of Texas. On the opposing side are the likes of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jordan.

Hensarling’s spokeswoman, Sarah Rozier, said he “supports TPA and he’s encouraging other members to do the same.”

But when a majority of the GOP conference huddled Thursday morning to talk about the trade issue at a meeting organized by its chairwoman, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and led by House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a lot of the members still had questions about the basics of how the fast-track process works — for example, how its protections would be stripped if the president brings back a bad deal, the panel’s trade subcommittee chairman, Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), said.

“I had one person, when I walked out, who said, ‘I have a better understanding. I’m getting closer [to supporting fast track],’” Tiberi told POLITICO.

Republican sources say the fast-track bill, which passed the Senate after a frenzied debate on Friday, could come up in the House as early as the first week of June.

Ryan and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) are increasingly confident that they can limit the conservative defections to those who have already declared their opposition, House Republican aides said.

“I don’t think they’re saying they’ve got [enough support to pass the bill], but they’ve opened a path to get it,” one of the aides said. “I don’t think there are all that many undecided. It’s a question of people whose minds might be able to be changed.”

Ryan, who has been leading the charge in favor of giving Obama fast-track authority, has been working to keep outside conservative groups like Club for Growth and The Heritage Foundation from lobbying against the bill. But the Republican opposition has succeeded in throwing its passage into doubt.

Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government and a staunch critic of Obama’s trade agenda, also assessed the current votes against fast-track at about 45 to 50. He said he isn’t surprised that conservative opposition to the bill puts them in agreement with their Democratic colleagues on such things as currency manipulation, the transparency of the administration’s massive Asia-Pacific deal and the protection U.S. jobs from predatory foreign practices.

“Having a trade deal that’s unfair to America is not a partisan issue. It’s a universal concern,” Manning said. “[That] nobody can figure out what the heck’s in it is not a partisan concern.”

Jordan told reporters this week that he thought the GOP leadership still didn’t have the votes to pass the fast-track bill, “but they’re working on that, so they may be close.”

Which side the undecided Republicans take will soon become clearer, now that the Senate has spoken. But the product that left the upper chamber could pose problems for House conservatives. To appease Democrats, Senate leaders agreed to pair the fast-track bill with Trade Adjustment Assistance, a retraining program for workers displaced by trade deals that most Republican members dislike.

“Many House Republicans are growing increasingly concerned about the Senate bill,” a House Republican aide told POLITICO. “Now, not only do they need to decide whether this TPA is good, but if it’s also worth the price” of the retraining program.

Heritage President Jim DeMint had harsh words for Trade Adjustment Assistance in an op-ed in The Heritage Foundation’s news site, The Daily Signal.

“Free trade is certainly a good thing,” DeMint wrote. “But some liberals in Congress who are less than enthusiastic about free trade insisted that Trade Promotion Authority only be passed if it is accompanied by a reauthorization of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.”

The former GOP senator from South Carolina said the program has been shown to be ineffective at helping workers get jobs that pay as well as their old ones.

“Tacking it to Trade Promotion Authority passage tarnishes the whole thing,” DeMint wrote. But he added, “[G]ood conservatives can disagree on whether the current draft of [the fast-track bill] is appropriate.”

Still, the fact that the legislation is supported by the president, the Senate majority leader, the House speaker and the chairmen of the relevant committees in both chambers keeps many confident it won’t be defeated.

Lobbyists had been talking for weeks about Republican members’ complaints over the lack of communication on the bill’s contents before its April introduction. But House Agriculture Chairman Michael Conaway (R-Texas), who is on the fast-track whip team, told POLITICO last week that the stances of members have solidified since then.

Now that the legislation is public, “that argument … is considered moot,” Conaway said. “They’ve had ample time to wade through that bill. Members don’t have that fallback position now even if they had it early on.”

Other Republican members, including some on his committee, were attempting to leverage their votes over unrelated issues, he said.

Conaway also said passage of trade promotion authority would give members more insight into the contents of the Asia-Pacific trade deal because it would allow members to attend the talks, which are close to wrapping up.

Dan Susskind, communications director for tea party-endorsed Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.), said his boss is opposed to the legislation for a litany of reasons. For one, Susskind said, trade promotion authority addresses only the economic aspects of the Asia-Pacific deal and should also include directives overseeing how the administration addresses topics like security and diplomatic issues.

Susskind also said the right type of deal could get through without fast track, perhaps under a different president. It would just require more consultation with Congress: “As it is now, we could still get a deal.”

Adam Behsudi contributed to this report.