Two major cities strongly oppose Fast Track

Electronic Frontier Foundation - The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has unanimously voted in favor of a resolution today urging the district's congressional representatives to oppose Fast Track legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnershipagreement. Supervisor John Avalos put forth the resolution, which expresses concerns about the secret trade agreement's provisions that would impact the free and open Internet, among a host of other threats to the public interest.

... San Francisco is a city that has long been committed to government transparency, and the utter secrecy of deals like the TPP flies in the face of those values. The Board of Supervisors (which also serves as our city council) passed the Sunshine Ordinance almost 15 years ago to protect openness of the government's workings. "Public officials who attempt to conduct the public's business in secret should be held accountable for their actions," the law reads.

o

Several weeks earlier, the Seattle City Council had voted unanimously in opposition to TPP. As Kevin Zeese reported: 

This became a high stakes city council resolution for the Obama administration because they worked hard to avoid it the result. Reportedly President Obama called the mayor to urge him to derail the vote, but he had no control over the council. High ranking officials from the US Trade Representative called some of the council members as did all the big business interests in Seattle, a city where the port is responsible for billions in economic activity, tens of thousands of jobs and where a million containers are handled annually. Washington is the most trade dependent state in the country so for its largest port city to reject fast track is significant. Despite all of this pressure, the council voted unanimously to oppose fast track for the TPP and express their support for free trade, not rigged trade like the TPP.