Boozman, Snyder Make Right Call

Hats off to Rep. Vic Snyder, a Democrat who recently cast his vote with the majority of Republicans to give President Bush a narrow 215-214 victory on the fast-track trade bill, one of the White House’s top legislative priorities.

Rep. John Boozman, a Republican casting his first vote since being elected in November, also voted for the measure, as expected. Arkansas’ other two congressmen, Reps. Marion Berry and Mike Ross, joined mostly Democrats in the vote against it.

While any of the 215 could claim to be the decisive vote, Snyder deserves our admiration for his courage under intense pressure for joining 20 other Democrats in doing the right thing to help Arkansas and the nation. Snyder has been a consistent supporter of free trade.

Fast track is needed for the United States to negotiate international trade and investment agreements. It was an authority given to past presidents before it expired in 1994 during President Clinton’s term — a victim of politics as Republicans gained control in Congress.

The fast-track bill, expected to be approved rather easily in the more pro-trade Senate, gives a president the power to negotiate trade agreements and then have them put to a yes-or-no vote by Congress without amendments. Without such a law, backers say, foreign leaders are reluctant to negotiate with the United States.

Republicans say the bill will help U.S. farmers and businesses, which makes it all the more obvious that Berry and Ross put party interests ahead of state interests. Democrats have, for the most part, opposed the measure because organized labor thinks it will destroy jobs and environmental groups think it will allow environmental abuses that are prohibited under U.S. laws.

Meanwhile, U.S. companies are losing hundreds of millions of dollars in business each year without such an agreement, because foreign nations take their business elsewhere.

As pleased as we are with Snyder, we were equally disappointed to read the following account of Berry in The Washington Post.

The newspaper said Berry, “who was on his cell phone to White House lobbyist Nicholas E. Calio during the vote discussing Bush’s farm policy and the prospect of projects for his district, ultimately voted ‘no’ after House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo., assured him of a seat on the influential Appropriations Committee.”