How Dems outmaneuvered GOP on ACORN
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
October 27, 2009
Last Thursday was a confusing day at the House Financial Services Committee. The committee was preparing to vote on legislation to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency when a fight erupted over ACORN, the community organizing group that was defunded by Congress after videos surfaced showing ACORN workers involved in a variety of corrupt practices.
Although the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- designed to deal with issues like mortgages and credit-card fees -- has nothing to do with community organizing, Democrats offered an amendment that could allow ACORN and groups like it to participate in the new agency. Republicans offered an amendment of their own, designed to stop the Democratic one. An argument ensued. It was complicated, with lots of different proposals and a good bit of misunderstanding. But when the dust settled, Democrats had outmaneuvered Republicans, and the new bill they approved could allow organizations like ACORN to play a role in the highest levels of the new consumer protection agency.
The bill creates two boards. One, the Oversight Board, will be the key panel giving advice to the director of the new agency. The bill says the Oversight Board will have seven members and specifies who those members will be: the chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve; the head of the agency responsible for chartering and regulating national banks; the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the chairman of the National Credit Union Administration; the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission; the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the chairman of the liaison committee of representatives of state agencies to the Financial Institutions Examination Council.
That's the Oversight Board. The bill would also create a second board, the Advisory Board, which would offer general advice to the director of the new agency. The bill does not specify how many members the Advisory Board will have, nor who they will be. It just says they should be "experts in financial services, community development, fair lending and civil rights, and consumer financial products or services."
The Oversight Board, made up of some of the most powerful people in the U.S. government, is clearly the more powerful of the two boards. Since the makeup of the Oversight Board is specified in the bill, Republicans did not expect Democrats to try to open up that board to include openings for ACORN and similar groups. Instead, Republicans expected Democrats to offer an amendment which would make it possible for representatives from ACORN and other groups to serve on the Advisory Board. With that in mind, Republicans prepared an amendment of their own banning ACORN from the Advisory Board. (The central part of the amendment did not go after ACORN by name, but barred individuals from organizations that have been indicted for federal or state election law violations from serving on the board.)
It turns out Republicans were mistaken. On Thursday, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters introduced an amendment that would add five members, not to the Advisory Board, but to the Oversight Board, with all five chosen from among "experts in the fields of consumer protection, fair lending and civil rights, representatives of depository institutions that primarily serve underserved communities, or representatives of communities that have been significantly impacted by higher-priced mortgage loans." That description could easily fit ACORN, or any number of other pro-Democratic groups. In any event, these new members would serve alongside the top officials from the Fed, FDIC, HUD, and the rest of the Oversight Board. Waters did not waste her time with the lower-level Advisory Board; she went straight for the top, the Oversight Board.
But Republicans had prepared an amendment which covered just the Advisory Board. "We can only anticipate what she's going to offer," says Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who introduced the Republican amendment, referring to Waters. "We anticipated the Advisory Board."
"Did Rep. Waters aim higher than you thought she would?" Bachmann was asked. "She certainly did," Bachmann answered.
If Waters surprised Bachmann, it also appears that Bachmann surprised Waters. The California Democrat appeared to expect Bachmann to attack the proposal to add community activists to the Oversight Board, and Waters seemed confused that Bachmann's amendment addressed the Advisory Board instead. Waters was prepared to fight, and then discovered the other side had missed the real target. "I do not know what we are doing here," Waters said at one point. "She [Bachmann] is amending the wrong board."
But committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank knew what was going on. Seeing that Bachmann's amendment did not cover the more important Oversight Board, Frank made sure Waters' amendment remained untouched. "We are simply trying to make sure that [Bachmann's] amendment does not inadvertently undo the amendment the gentlewoman from California previously offered," Frank said, before quickly ordering a vote on the amendments. The committee approved both Bachmann's and Waters'. The result was that the Oversight Board will be expanded with members of community organizations, including ACORN. Democrats did not seem to mind that ACORN was banned from the less-important Advisory Board.
In the end, the committee approved the bill, with amendments, by a vote of 39 to 29. And that was it for the day. But the issue is not yet settled.
Bachmann knows that Democrats managed to open up the Oversight Board to ACORN and other groups without even being forced to publicly defend the decision. Now, she hopes they will be forced to vote up or down on a proposal to bar ACORN from the Oversight Board. "What we're going to try to do is offer an amendment when the bill goes to the floor," says Bachmann. "That's the goal -- to keep people who are from ACORN from serving on the Oversight Board."
So there will be another test. Will Democrats vote to negate Waters' amendment, to keep ACORN and other organizations from playing key roles in the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency? Or will they take a stand for ACORN when it comes to the final debate on the bill? The answer could determine whether ACORN finds an important place in a large and powerful new government agency.
Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blog posts appears on www.ExaminerPolitics.com.
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