On June 23rd, the Senate moved ahead on giving the President “Fast Track” authority, or the ability to move negotiated trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) through Congress without amendments or filibusters. To get to this point, the President has forged an allegiance with Republicans, since the overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress opposed Fast Track.

Now, the House is a conservative body, dominated by Republican lawmakers who otherwise disdain the President’s agenda. And while the GOP was inclined to support the President on advancing a bill favorable to corporate interests, they needed a few sweeteners to secure the votes necessary for passage in the absence of Democratic support. Specifically, the Republicans added — and the Administration accepted — amendments to the Fast Track bill to forbid U.S. trade negotiators from addressing climate change or immigration in trade deals.

Now, watching the hardball played by House Republicans, you’d think the Senate Democrats would have gotten their own pound of flesh as well.

You’d be wrong.

A filibuster-proof majority of 60 Senators — including 13 Democrats — voted for cloture on the Fast Track bill, which ends debate and allows the Senate to move to a vote on final passage tomorrow, June 24th. The 13 Democratic “yes” votes for Fast Track today came with no price. As Zach Carter and Michael McAuliff reported for the Huffington Post:

“The fate of [TPA] hinged on whether backers of the fast-track legislation could win over Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Chris Coons (Del.). All three had pushed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to allow a vote reauthorizing the soon-to-expire Export-Import Bank as part of any deal on TPA. They didn’t get one.”

Not only did the Democratic Senators who flipped on Fast Track not get an agreement for an Export-Import Bank vote, they didn’t even get Trade Adjustment Assistance — a program meant to provide aid and training to workers who lost their jobs due to the trade deal. Previously, the House rejected TAA due to fierce Republican and Democratic opposition. The Republicans opposed the assistance; Democrats opposed TAA as a means of sinking Fast Track, and because it was paid for by raiding Medicare. Now, Senator Patty Murray claims to have gotten a “commitment” from Rebublican leaders for a vote on TAA. With Fast Track now locked in, the Democratic tactical opposition to TAA may subside, allowing it to be passed — assuming Speaker Boehner keeps his word and brings a vote.

It didn’t have to be this way. President Obama and the pro-Fast Track Republicans needed 13 Senate Democrats to get Fast Track across the finish line, especially following Senator Ted Cruz’s newfound opposition. Had Senate Democrats locked arms, they would’ve had all the leverage to demand far, far more than just a “commitment” to a TAA vote from Republicans. After all, given the anti-climate and anti-immigration amendments, there were many reasons to reject this version of Fast Track. What’s more, this is a issue that labor groups have been willing to take to the mat.

But instead of using the moment to flex their muscles, 13 Senate Democrats simply waived Fast Track through: Michael Bennet (CO), Maria Cantwell (WA), Tom Carper (DE), Chris Coons (DE), Dianne Feinstein (CA), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Bill Nelson (FL), Tim Kaine (VA), Claire McCaskill (MO), Patty Murray (WA), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Mark Warner (VA) and Ron Wyden (OR).

Earlier this month, Brad De Long expressed his concerns — even as a “card-carrying neoliberal” — over the TPP. I am not a neoliberal, so my list concerns over both the TPP run far longer than Brad’s. I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren that the deal imperils financial reform laws due to investor state dispute settlement provisions. I’m sympathetic to Doctors Without Borders concerns that TPP will restrict access to generic drugs, making many treatments “unaffordable to millions.” And I’m swayed by Senator Sherrod Brown’s arguments that TPP will cost millions of American jobs (after all, the man wrote a whole book on trade). Senator Maria Cantwell was among those who voted today for Fast Track that claimed to also be concerned about these same lost jobs. She told Politico over the weekend, “I want to get a certainty that we’re going to take care of workers who are laid off.” Given how badly the Obama Administration and its Republican allies needed Senator Cantwell’s vote on Fast Track today, you’d think she would demand something in return for those lost American jobs.

Instead, Cantwell and 12 of her fellow Democratic Senators passed Fast Track…for absolutely nothing at all.