Obama campaign alumni Mitch Stewart, the Battleground States Director for Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, and Lydia Tran, the former National Press Secretary for Organizing for America, just launched a new astroturf campaign to promote the fast-track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Their efforts will focus on Oregon and Washington at first because they are both export-heavy states--and because Ron Wyden (D-OR) is the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

The letter asks for a new process for reaching trade agreements in which Congress has a role in selecting trade partners and in which Congress sets up a set of negotiating objectives that must be achieved.

Approximately 600 organizations have sent a formal, public letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) opposing "fast-track" trade promotion authority and calling for a new system for negotiating and implementing trade agreements. The letter asks for trade pacts that "deliver benefits for most Americans, promote broadly shared prosperity, and safeguard the environment and public health."Read the letter here