The local press in Rep. Gregory Meeks’ neighborhood is getting on his case about his CAFTA vote. Here’s an editorial from the Queens Chronicle.

Thursday August 18, 2005

Queens Chronicle
Editorial
No More Compromises

During the sleepy Congressional recess that occurs every August, it is easy to put aside thoughts of Capitol Hill for a few weeks and to quickly forget about what legislation has already been passed this year. But these past events will have a profound impact on what is shaping up to be this fall’s most important legislative battle. No, it is not Judge John Roberts’ Supreme Court nomination, but rather the continuing fight over Social Security, which the House Republican leadership has now vowed they will put to a vote.

Since January, Republicans in Washington, D.C. have pretty much gotten whatever they wanted on a whole host of issues, with the notable exception of Social Security. Indeed, President Bush’s firm commitment to supplant part of the program’s guaranteed benefits with private accounts has met with strong, unified opposition among both Democrats and the public (an AP poll in early August showed Americans, by a two-to-one majority, disapprove of Bush’s handling of Social Security).

However, with solid majorities in both houses, the GOP’s ability to still achieve many of its legislative goals is not surprising. But what may raise some eyebrows is that they have had significant help from Queens’ own Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks.

In fact, Representative Meeks has crossed the aisle on several GOP pet causes this year from bankruptcy reform to the energy bill to CAFTA, making him 1 of only 10 Democrats (and the only New Yorker) to vote for all 3 measures. On CAFTA, which passed by only two votes, his switching sides ultimately meant the difference between passage and defeat.

In explaining these votes, Meeks’ tone has sounded suspiciously soft. “It could be more horrible than it is,” he said this past spring after voting for a bankruptcy reform bill that makes it more costly for Americans to dig themselves out of debts arising from a failed business or from predatory lending. “Under this administration and under this Congress, we must compromise and soften the blow,” he added.

When it came to the highly contentious vote on CAFTA last month, Meeks once again displayed an amazing willingness to find common ground, distasteful as it may be. “CAFTA is by no means a perfect agreement,” he acknowledged, while adding that the pact’s labor protections for Central American workers left much to be desired. Yet, he also said that voting it down was not a valid option because of the jobs he expected it to create. Of course, this was the same argument used by many lawmakers in 1993 to justify passing NAFTA, a trade agreement that the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute estimates has cost New York nearly 52,000 jobs during the past 10 years.

No doubt, effective governing is all about compromise, but the fact that Meeks’ staff drew up two press releases the day before the CAFTA vote, one to justify whichever way he decided to vote, bespeaks more political opportunism than what he termed as a vote of conscience.

These actions, even for someone who has publicly pledged to preserve and protect Social Security from retirement age increases and benefit cuts, are worrisome. That the chairperson of the New Democrat Coalition caucus, to which Meeks belongs, has said that Social Security reform is an issue that “urgently needs our attention,” is downright frightening.

This fall you can bet Republicans will try to portray Democrats as obstructionists, intent only on stopping so-called progress and devoid of any ideas of their own. Make no mistake, their ultimate goal is to bury Social Security, not to save it. Democrats who seek to work with them on this issue threaten to start us down a slippery slope that will eventually end a program that has protected elderly New Yorkers for 70 years. On this issue, there can be no compromises.