Rep. Bera Admits Someone Pulling His Strings in Op-Ed Supporting "Fast Track," TPP

When Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA 7th District) mounted the Soapbox in last Sunday's Sacramento Bee to announce he would be voting in support of Fast Track for the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the least his constituents could have hoped for was that he came by his conviction honestly. Especially, since he is going against their wishes.

Poor Bera.

Although he now says that he stands by what he said in the discredited op-ed column in his district's leading newspaper, he also admits that "widely used and disseminated statements made their way into the final draft." In other words, the Congressman plagiarized words and arguments used by people promoting the widely hated TPP and the shameful Fast Track process that the Business Roundtable and their ilk want to use to pull the wool over the eyes of members of Congress.

No sooner had Bera's column run in the Bee than it started to come apart at the seams. The website Buzzfeed analyzed the column and reported striking similarities between what he had published under his name and talking points from pro-trade business groups and conservative Democrats. The website found at least six instances of plagiarism.

Activists, including members of CWA Local 9421, occupied Rep. Ami Bera's office all day on Tuesday to try to convince him to vote the wishes of his constituents on Fast Track, not the wishes of the Business Roundtable and free trade hustlers.

"Rep. Ami Bera appears to copy from the Business Roundtable, Third Way, and the White House in a rare instance of a Democrat offering President Obama full-throated support for fast-track trade authority," Buzzfeed said in their report.

The Bee, in a story on Tuesday, said Dan Morain, The Bee's editorial page editor, who immediately reached out to Bera to find out what happened, was none too pleased.

"It clearly is a work that borrowed way too heavily from other peoples' work," The Bee quoted Morain saying. "I would expect better of people who write op-eds."

And, predictably, Bera, in his mea culpa, blamed "staff" for the plagiarism, promising to deal with the person "internally."

The Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives is almost unified in opposition against Fast Track and TPP, except for a few outliers like Bera. CWA and our coalition partners have not given up on changing Bera's mind about Fast Track, especially now that we know his convictions on the issue are borrowed and not deeply held.

On April 23, activists occupied his district office. 

Activists continue a round of events to convince the Congressman to vote the wishes of his constituents. A week ago, activists took the message about Bera door-to-door in his gated private lakefront community in Elk Grove, an upper-scale suburb of Sacramento, 243 households in total. On Tuesday, a couple of dozen activists, including members of CWA Local 9421, again occupied his district office in Sacramento, CA all day, which led to an hour-long meeting on Wednesday between the activists and Rep. Bera.