In this corner, wearing blue, Elizabeth Warren
by Tom Sullivan
Sen. Elizabeth Warren may not have stopped passage of the “Citigroup provision” last week, but even in losing she may be winning. As the Boston Globe observed:
“You’re not always going to win. That’s just the nature of politics,” said Dennis Kelleher, a Wall Street critic who heads a group called Better Markets and a Warren ally. “Every time the American people are reminded of what Wall Street’s doing in the dark corners of Washington, it’s a loss for Wall Street.”
And increased stature for Warren. Harold Meyerson writes in the Washington Post that the fights Warren picks with Wall Street have crossover appeal:
Although 20 Democratic senators joined Warren last weekend in voting against the funding bill as a way to protest its allowing publicly insured banks to trade risky derivatives, five colleagues joined her in the more emphatic gesture of voting against the cloture motion that brought the bill to a vote. They were three staunch progressives — Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Minnesota’s Al Franken and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders (an independent) — and two senators generally considered among the party’s more conservative lawmakers: West Virginia’s Joe Manchin III and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill.
By the metric of social issues, the “more conservative” label fits those two. Unlike his Democratic colleagues, Manchin voted Monday against confirming Vivek Murthy as surgeon general to register his displeasure with Murthy’s advocacy of stricter gun control, a position that runs counter not just to Manchin’s beliefs but also to those of his West Virginia constituents. But when it came to rescinding regulations on Wall Street, Manchin and McCaskill were among Warren’s firmest allies.
Warren will need them. And more. From The Hill:
Fresh off a victory in the government funding debate that liberals decried as a giveaway to Wall Street, advocates for the financial sector aim to pursue additional changes to Dodd-Frank that they say would lighten burdens created by the 2010 law. Among the top items on the wish list: easing new requirements on mortgages, loosening restrictions on financial derivatives and overhauling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
And they thought Warren fought hard to preserve Dodd-Frank. Just wait until they come to emasculate Warren’s independent CFPB.
Republicans and industry groups are demanding an overhaul of the agency, calling for a new structure that allows Congress to set its budget. They also want the bureau led by a bipartisan commission rather than a single director that they say has too much power.
Democrats have universally opposed those efforts, none more fervently than Warren, who came up with the idea for the bureau and was the guiding hand during its inception.
That’s a fight I’d ante up to watch on Pay Per View.