The Senate’s version of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 passed on May 20th. Today, the conferees meet to meld the Senate version with the House version. One of the big questions about the conference is whether or not it will retain Blanche Lincoln’s provision that would force large firms to spin-off their derivatives trading desks into subsidiaries. The provision is populist, but more in a poke-you-in-the-eye kind of way than anything truly substantive. Pretty much everyone opposes the measure as either silly or ineffective except the large majority of Americans who are totally game for eye-poking. I’m not convinced the measure will do any harm, though, so I could really care less whether it stays or goes, except for what its fate says about the degree to which the leaders of the Democratic Party are willing to yank people around by the balls.
The reason Blanche Lincoln is involved with Wall Street reform is that she is the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee which has partial jurisdiction over derivatives. Derivatives were created as a kind of insurance against swings in crop prices. Lincoln surprised everyone by crafting this rather tough legislative language on derivatives trading, but she didn’t fool anyone. Everybody saw it as a cynical ploy to look anti-corporate for five seconds so she could fend off a a primary challenge from her left. Now that she has successfully done that, people are wondering whether the language will be dropped in conference.
One side says it will be dropped because it no longer serves its intended purpose, which was simply to help Lincoln win her primary. The other side says that the fact that the measure proved popular and helped her win her primary gives the measure momentum. You know what? I don’t give a shit. But I think it would be terribly cynical to drop it now, and it would harm her longshot effort to win reelection in November. But since I don’t care if she wins in November, I still don’t give a shit.
The only thing I care about is the damage that is done when the Democrats expose themselves as faux-populists. Less of that, please.
