President Barack Obama has made passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership his top priority. He wants a vote in a lame-duck session of Congress after the election when retired and fired representatives could come back to Washington to approve it.

If passed the TPP could continue to weaken the United States. Entire industries and professions could be sent overseas. In the two decades since NAFTA, we have seen record trade deficits and job loss – and 80 percent of the TPP text is taken straight from NAFTA.

Both major-party presidential candidates, congressional leadership and many members of Congress oppose TPP. With partisan passions at a fevered pitch, you know the TPP must be truly terrible when it faces such broad disapproval.

But a small, influential cabal in Congress is still scheming to quietly pass it in the session of little consequence.

This makes the fact that none of Colorado’s congressional representatives have been willing to flatly declare a position on TPP before the election especially unacceptable.

The TPP was negotiated behind closed doors for seven years with the public, press and Congress locked out. But more than 500 official U.S. trade advisors representing corporate interests had access to rig the rules.

This is one reason so many Republicans and Democrats, including those who have supported past trade agreements, united in opposition once the text was finally made public.

While branded as a “trade” agreement, only six of the TPP’s 30 chapters cover trade. The rest set policy on everything from energy and food safety to how the U.S. government can spend our tax dollars. We would be required to conform all of our local, state and federal laws to these rules.

The TPP would give rights to thousands of multinational companies to sue the U.S. government before a panel of three corporate lawyers that can award unlimited sums, including for loss of future expected profits, to be paid by American taxpayers. There are no appeals.

Some past U.S. deals have had these alarming terms. But, these agreements were with countries that do not have many multinational corporations with operations here. If the TPP were enacted, 9,500 new foreign corporations – Australian mining firms, Japanese banks and more – would get access to the tribunals and special privileges beyond what our laws and courts provide U.S. firms.

If enacted, TPP has no expiration date. We could change presidents and Congress, but not one word can be changed unless all 12 countries involved agree.

What is the upside? The official U.S. government study about TPP’s effects projected that 36 of 55 U.S. economic sectors would suffer worsening trade balances if the deal were enacted. The gain is that in 2032, if the deal were fully implemented, U.S. economic growth would have increased so that we would be as rich on Jan.1, 2032, with TPP as we would have been on Feb. 15, 2032, without it. Seriously.

U.S. Reps. Ken Buck, a Republican, and Democrats Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter had the good sense to oppose “fast track” authority for the TPP last year. But U.S. Reps. Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn, Scott Tipton, all three Republicans, and Democrat Jared Polis supported giving new powers to the president to try to ram the TPP through Congress.

As Election Day looms, the members of Colorado’s congressional delegation must declare their positions on the TPP. For the sake of our sovereignty, economy and freedom, let’s demand they come out against TPP now.