I looked yesterday at what Barney Frank’s retirement would mean for the all-important House Financial Services Committee. The next in line to represent Democrats as the leader of that committee is Maxine Waters, and I thought there would be significant pushback to her attaining that leadership role. It turns out that I was right. There’s [...]

As you may know, Rep. Barney Frank plans to retire, which means by next year, both lead co-sponsors of Dodd-Frank will be out of Congress, having secured a legacy of sorts through attaching their names to that legislation. Frank, who has been in Congress since 1980, reportedly sought retirement after redistricting maps were completed. Frank’s [...]

Brian Beutler has a disturbing article about House conferees working inside the conference committee on behalf of the New Democrats and the New York delegation to kill or weaken key provisions of the Wall Street reform bill. Because of the conference committee’s complex rules, the Wall Street friendly House members negotiating the final bill have [...]

Not many people remember the House debate over Wall Street reform. It occurred in the backdrop of the health care debate, and the lack of attention from the general public led to a pretty badly compromised bill. The lobbyists were able to win the day on a number of fronts, and the finished product, while [...]

Today, the House Financial Services Committee passed an amendment to their financial regulatory reform bill that would mandate an audit of the Federal Reserve. The Paul-Grayson amendment, named for its chief sponsors, Reps. Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, passed the committee by a count of 43-26. Supporters of the audit the Fed effort were concerned [...]

Alan Grayson and Ron Paul have teamed up to get over 2/3 of the US House on board – over 300 co-sponsors – for a bill to subject the Federal Reserve to an audit of their transactions with the financial industry since the crisis of 2008. They even got a version of this language into [...]