Kudos to Eric Lipton of the New York Times for reporting on the scam that is the House Financial Services Committee. I remember Barney Frank’s incessant complaining about how large the committee had grown when he was chairing it during the Great Recession. It has become ridiculous:
Political action committees — set up by lobbying firms, unions, corporations and other groups trying to push their agenda in Congress — have donated more money to Financial Services Committee members in the first six months of this year than to members of any other committee. The $9.4 million total is nearly $2 million more than the total for the Armed Services Committee, the only House panel with more members.
With so many lawmakers clamoring to be on the Financial Services Committee, it has grown to 61 members from 44 since 1980, forcing the installation of four tiered rows of seats in the Rayburn House Office Building — with the first row of lawmakers on the floor, just in front of the tables used for witnesses.
Can you imagine tying to do two rounds of witness questioning when your committee has 61 members? And they want to be on the committee not so much to impact legislation but simply to reduce the amount of time they have to spend on the phone cold calling people and asking for cash.
After the elections in November, Democratic Party leaders gave a PowerPoint presentation urging their freshman members to spend as much as four hours a day making fund-raising calls while in Washington, and an additional hour of “strategic outreach” holding breakfasts or “meet and greets” with possible financial supporters. That adds up to more time than these first-term lawmakers were advised to spend on Congressional business.
When you are supposed to spend five hours a day raising money, anything that can rake in the bucks without any personalized effort becomes incredibly valuable. And sitting on the Financial Services Committee works:
One industry lobbyist, who asked not to be named because client matters are supposed to be confidential, said his political action committee was sizing up all of the Financial Services Committee freshmen as it tried to determine who could best help deliver on the industry’s agenda.
“It is almost like investing in a first-round draft pick for the N.B.A. or N.F.L.,” the lobbyist said. “There is potential there. So we make an investment, and we are hopeful that investment produces a return.”
Freshman Republican Andy Barr introduced a bill that allows banks to loan money to people who they suspect can’t pay the money back. Republican freshman Ann Wagner introduced a bill that allows insurance corporations to sell life insurance policies to people who they know won’t be getting a worthwhile deal.
While that degree of shameless shilling is still somewhat shocking, the Democrats are captured, too.
The imbalance is apparent on the Democratic side as well. Each of the seven freshman Democrats on the committee has raised more industry PAC money so far this year than the committee’s top Democrat, Representative Maxine Waters of California, who has had a testy relationship with the industry.
These freshman Democrats joined this year with Republicans on the committee — over the objection of Ms. Waters and the Obama administration — to support measures advocated by Wall Street banks that would roll back some of the strictest provisions of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which were passed in 2010 in the aftermath of the global recession.
A spokeswoman for Representative Patrick Murphy, a Florida Democrat who has taken in more industry PAC money than any other Democratic freshman, $53,500, said his votes had been cast based on what he believed was in the best interest of his constituents, not to please potential contributors.
It’s easy to vote with the banks when you know that the bill will die in the Senate, but the real reason they’re doing it is because of that five hour requirement. They figure, “What’s the harm? It’s never going to become the law.”
Is it any wonder that the Republicans were desperate to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? What’s surprising is that Freshman Democrats didn’t join them. Justice John Paul Stevens’ dissent in Citizens United is looking better all the time.
