Administration officials have been so impressed by Nancy Pelosi’s approach to negotiations over giving President Barack Obama “fast-track” trade authority that they’ve started to consider a crazy possibility: She could even vote for it herself.

But only if she has to.


As the liberal leader of a progressive caucus, the House minority leader doesn’t really like fast track, which means Congress couldn’t amend the terms of Obama’s Pacific trade deal. She voted against it when it came up in 2002. She has serious policy concerns about both Trade Promotion Authority, as it’s known, and the treaty called the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That’s put her in a tight spot. She doesn’t want her president to be embarrassed by failing to get an authority granted to his predecessors. But congressional sources close to Pelosi say she’s peeved that her members are being asked to take such a tough vote on trade when Republicans — the party that has historically carried trade votes — have one of their biggest majorities in history.

Members are left trying to read between the lines of what she’s said in public and private, that she’s trying to find a path to yes but is full of frustrations about the process and the terms.

In the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted no and washed his hands of the effort, except for suggesting an idea that would have upended the timing. Pelosi’s approach has been the opposite: Obama aides say they don’t know how Pelosi will vote in the end, but they gush about how hands-on she’s been, how accommodating she’s been in letting them make their case, how critical she’s been in saying nothing about her position to give her fellow Democrats cover to get to yes.

“I applaud the leader for creating enough space to really evaluate this legislation,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), who announced his support for TPA last month and has become the anti-TPA effort’s top target to scare others into voting no. “She’s done a good job creating that space.”

There’s the noise about the TPA vote: two dozen publicly undecided Democrats, labor unions threatening Bera and other Democratic yes votes, Obama going around in person and on television to rally support. Then there’s the reality: If fast track is going to pass the House, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is going to need to keep Republican defections limited to about 50, Democrats are going to have to make up the rest of the majority and it will pass with the bare minimum of votes.

The White House hopes Pelosi’s going to put her thumb on the backs of however many necks she needs, forcing yes votes among the more reluctant but safe members, letting the more endangered members off the hook, finding votes and trading votes until she gets to the 24, or 25, or 26 that she needs.

She did it with Obamacare. She’s done it at other key moments when Obama’s agenda’s been on the line. Now the White House is counting on her to do it again.

“If this is going to pass, Pelosi wants to minimize member impact and not have any single member walk the plank so that a House Republican doesn’t have to,” said one person close to the minority leader.

Don’t expect the suspense to end soon.

“She is caught between a caucus that naturally gravitates toward no and the White House, and loyalty to a White House that is expecting her to get to yes. Her position is that she wants to get to yes and she is talking about this almost on a daily basis,” said a senior House Democrat. “She is going to figure it out when we are in the last two minutes where she will be.”

It’s more than just not saying anything. Pelosi pushed the White House to arrange member briefings with Cabinet officials to make their case on TPA and TPP, accommodating with scheduling to the point of almost being too accommodating, making sure that they keep showing up even as their calendars begin to fill with other things. They’ve done sessions on currency manipulation, labor protections, Investor State Dispute Settlement, agriculture and food safety and environment, and are now moving on to TPP partner country-specific briefings, with one about Mexico scheduled for Thursday.

Pelosi attends them all. She’s also taken to keeping them in line, urging adamant colleagues who start interrupting the presentations to listen and take their seats. People know that you’re opposed, Pelosi will tell people like very vocal anti-TPA Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), but others are there to learn, she says, so respect that and let them speak.

“She was a calming influence, keeping it from erupting into a scene,” said one person who’s been in the room.

“Whether you are for or against TPA, members have been deeply appreciative of the space she has created within the caucus to have a respectful debate and try to at least stipulate to the same set of facts,” the person close to Pelosi said.

Though he’s never much interested in the details of legislative strategy, Obama has been talking trade with Pelosi regularly for months, including pulling her into the Oval Office for an update on the whip count after a bill-signing ceremony in the Rose Garden and over a lunch they had in his private dining room in the West Wing.

She gets a call on her cellphone nearly everyday from White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on a number of issues. “It’s telling that she has already been on record saying she thinks we need to find a pathway to yes on trade promotion authority,” said Lynda Tran, a partner at 270 Strategies, which is advising the pro-TPA Progressive Coalition for American Jobs. “We expect her voice will continue to have a significant impact on the discussion around trade both publicly and privately.”

AP Photo

With the vote coming up, things started coming to a head Tuesday as members returned from a recess week for their caucus meeting; trade was the chief topic of discussion, according to multiple sources in the room. Pelosi gave them time to debate. Each side got five minutes to make their case, but DeLauro and fellow anti-TPA leaders Reps. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) blew through that. Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), head of the New Democrat Coalition and a leader of the yes votes, meanwhile, stood to thank Pelosi for the briefings.

After the meeting, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — who’s still officially undecided himself — called on Democrats and their allies to stop attacking the people who’ve come out in support of TPA.

Most of the actual whip counting among undecided Democrats has remained with the White House legislative affairs office, where former Pelosi aide Amy Rosenbaum is now the acting director. They’re staying in touch with Republicans, keeping updated on how many no votes they’re going to have to make up for on that side — though every Boehner whip count is taken with a mound of salt in a West Wing that’s gotten used to him falling short of predictions.

Sources close to Pelosi say she’s very concerned about political consequences for members who vote yes, and she will keep that number as small as possible, given how much she knows labor will try to make life difficult for those who do vote yes.

Pelosi’s purposefully keeping members quiet to see where Republicans end up. There is no use, she’s told people, for Democrats to say yes or no when they don’t yet know if Republicans will be able to pass it or face a massive mutiny.

As for Pelosi, her allies say she’ll probably be a no vote in the end given her policy objections, but she’ll find other safe Democratic members to press into support if the margin is small enough. Liberals and labor unions are confident she will be a no.

Some in the administration have gotten confident that they’ll have enough votes to squeak by. Others remain very skeptical, worried that for all the months of planning and efforts, there won’t be enough Republicans or Democrats to even get them close.

As the House came back into town this week, Obama called her for an update.