> That's already better in a case when agreement involves laws. Why on Earth would it be better to have Jeff Sessions (R-AL) representing US interests during t

> That's already better in a case when agreement involves laws. Why on Earth would it be better to have Jeff Sessions (R-AL) representing US interests during the TPP negotiations rather than a US trade rep? Actually that seems exactly the _opposite_ of a good thing, since any individual Congressman or set of Congressman is going to favor their state(s) over the country as a whole; they are directly accountable to the people in their state who elected them. At least a US trade representative is accountable to an elected official who represents the entire country. > When they are completely opaque and results are shown post factum - that's where potential for corruption grows. That's how Congress already works. Staffers and legislators produce the text of a bill and the results are shown after the deed is already done. All that enters the public record is some of the amendment history and the conference report, if there is one. And often amendments change huge portions of a bill, and you again see only the after-the-fact result. It's not a write-commit-write-commit cycle, it's a write-write-write-write-write-commit. > To put it shortly - evil things like to lurk in the dark. A lot of effective governance also works in the dark. The reality of life is that completely transparent, open negotiations are very difficult and close to impossible except for small, very tight-knit communities.