The Senate on Thursday morning is facing a cliffhanger vote to start clearing procedural hurdles for a vote on giving President Barack Obama fast-track authority to finalize negotiations on the highly-contentious Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.
It’s unclear if Obama and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have the 60 votes needed to advance to a full vote on Trade Promotion Authority, with several key senators still pushing amendments whose passage could make or break their support for TPA.
The trade deal has launched an obscure commerce policy discussion into a fiery political battle that has positioned the President at odds with most of his party, and driven a wedge between the Democratic presidential front-runner and her primary challengers.
The deal has spawned an unlikely alliance between Obama and Republican leaders in the Senate while pitting Obama against leading progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Senators are expected to vote after 10 a.m. on a procedural motion to end debate and vote on TPA the Obama administration has pushed to receive for weeks.
A failure to snag the 60 votes would be a major setback for Obama, who has personally advocated for the bill and publicly sparred with members of his own party throughout his efforts to push the measure through Congress.
The Senate is also looking to dispense with the trade votes to move forward and take up bills to reform or reauthorize the Patriot Act, an issue that considers to deeply divide the Senate and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The House overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act, a bipartisan bill to reform the Patriot Act and effectively end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone data on millions of Americans.
And while that bill was the result of a compromise between reform advocates and House Republican leadership, the bill is facing tough opposition in the Senate from powerful Republicans like McConnell, though the majority leader has vowed to allow a vote on the reform measure. He is pushing a competing bill to reauthorize the expiring Patriot Act provisions without any reforms.