dagblog - Comments for "Elizabeth Warren: Ok, So Now She's In"

...on the Senate Banking

AmericanDreamer — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:56:01 +0000

In reply to Elizabeth Warren: Ok, So Now She's In

...on the Senate Banking Committee, and ready to go:

http://doonesbury.slate.com/strip/archive/2012/12/16

If she ends up being excluded

AmericanDreamer — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 20:40:25 +0000

If she ends up being excluded it would send a message loud and clear that prospective members of the Banking committee who might ask uncomfortable questions of Wall Street megabanks, and perhaps even seek support for measures opposed vehemently by the industry titans, are not welcome. For the Democrats, being in the majority, that would be a particularly tone deaf message to put out, and a bad public relations blunder, lending even greater credence to the arguments of those who say the Democrats are in bed with Big Finance, too, when it comes to some of the core issues on financial sector policy.

So if she wants on the Banking Committee, I expect she will get on it. Her leverage as an incoming freshman senator is considerable, stemming from her public and media following.

The CW in this town, true also but less so for senators than House members, is that it's much more difficult to have influence on an issue if you are not on one of the relevant committees that deals with it. Then again, we're talking about Elizabeth Warren. So maybe she'd find ways not to let the turkeys keep her out.

Depending on how it all

erica20 — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:29:59 +0000

In reply to Andy Kroll, MotherJones

Depending on how it all shakes down, she might exert just as much influence off the committee as on it. She's a pretty tenacious outsider.

Andy Kroll, MotherJones

AmericanDreamer — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 15:44:09 +0000

In reply to Elizabeth Warren: Ok, So Now She's In

Andy Kroll, MotherJones online, today:

Not even two weeks have passed since Democrat Elizabeth Warren rode a wave of grassroots support to victory in the US Senate race in Massachusetts, ousting Republican incumbent Scott Brown. Senator-elect Warren has not yet hired her staff. She has not yet moved into her Senate office. But the banking industry is already taking aim at her, scurrying to curb her future clout on Capitol Hill.

Lobbyists and trade groups for Wall Street and other major banking players are pressuring lawmakers to deny Warren a seat on the powerful Senate banking committee. With the impending departures of Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Democrats have two spots to fill on the committee before the 113th Congress gavels in next year. Warren has yet said whether she wants to serve on the committee. But she would be a natural: she's a bankruptcy law expert, she served as Congress' lead watchdog overseeing the $700 billion bank bailout from 2008 to 2010, and she conceived of and helped launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

But the big banks are not fans of Warren, and their representatives in Washington have her in their crosshairs. Aides to two senators on the banking committee tell Mother Jones the industry has already moved to block Warren from joining the committee, which is charged with drafting legislation regulating much of the financial industry. "Downtown"—shorthand for Washington's lobbying corridor—"has been going nuts" to keep her off the committee, another Senate aide says.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a banking committee member, has been angling to get Warren on the committee, "but there are many bank lobbyists pushing to keep her off," a top Democratic Senate aide told Politico's Morning Money tipsheet. But the aide added, "If she really wants banking, it will be very tough politically to keep her off."

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