The Upside of a Republican Congress
Summary--Republicans who would ordinarily support things like TPP will vote against it just because Obama is for it.
http://inthesetimes.com/article/17524/upside_of_republican_congress_tpp_slog
This year, American negotiators are hammering out two massive trade agreements: the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). TTIP looks east to link the United States with the European Union. The TPP, or “NAFTA on steroids” to its foes, covers 11 Pacific-coast countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan and Malaysia. Critics believe the deals will empower multi-national corporations, suppress workers’ wages and undermine labor and environmental regulations.
For either deal to stand a chance of passing in the form dictated by international trade negotiators and their corporate cheerleaders, Congress needs to grant the Obama administration what’s known as fast-track authority. Fast-track would restrict federal legislators to a simple up-or-down vote on whatever deal the negotiators agree upon.
Obama has already asked for that authority, and new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pledged to win support for it in Congress. While most Republicans haven’t taken a public stance, most Democrats oppose the measure. Indeed, when it comes to the TPP and fast-track, progressive Democrats aren’t shy about taking on the administration.
“The White House has said they’d work with Republicans on [fast-track],” says Rep. Mark Pocan (DWis.), first vice-chair of the roughly 70-member CPC. “Our hope is that we’re also going to work with Republicans on it, but from a very different perspective”—i.e., to kill it.
It’s not as if the plight of the planet or the dangers of deregulation will suddenly sway the GOP. But Republicans do have to worry about the optics of enabling a president they love to hate.
“It remains to be seen if the Republican rank-and-file members of Congress, who are so busy attacking Obama as the power-grabbing unilateral imperial president, want to voluntarily delegate a huge swath of their constitutional authority,” says Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. Wallach says the change in Hill leadership may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. “If anything, it makes it less likely that trade authority will be granted,” she says.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but for 2 more years, 
and then there's 2016 and congressionals.
