Sen. Elizabeth Warren is a “force to be reckoned with, ” said former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank in comments published Tuesday.
The outspoken former House Financial Services Committee chairman and architect of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law said the backlash generated by Warren last week over a change to the legislation would prevent further lobbying efforts by Wall Street.
“Given the response we just saw, it will be difficult for them to make any major changes in the face of what I am now confident will be very loud public disapproval,” Frank said in an extensive interview with Reuters.
Warren organized liberals to oppose a provision in a government funding bill that would roll back a prohibition on trading certain kinds of derivatives by banks insured by the federal government. Although the bill eventually passed the House and Senate, “it’s mostly good news because of the furious response, which shows that financial reform continues to be a major public concern,” Frank said.
Although Frank had expressed support for undoing the derivatives provision in the past, he entered the debate last week to object to repealing part of the financial regulatory law outside of the normal congressional process, as part of a much larger, unrelated bill.
In a statement, he warned that including the change in the spending bill would set a “frightening precedent that provides a road map for further attacks on our protection against financial instability.”
Frank also expressed regret in the interview published Tuesday that lawmakers and regulators had succeeded in watering down a provision of the law related to the safety of loans. That measure, which Frank has called “the single most important part” of the Dodd-Frank law, requires lenders to maintain a financial stake in loans, including mortgages, that are packaged into securities and sold to investors. Regulators ultimately made the exception to that rule as broad as possible,and removed the requirement that home loans include a down payment.
Despite his praise for his fellow representative of Massachusetts, Frank told Reuters that he would be support Hillary Clinton for president “[p]retty enthusiastically.”
“I’m supporting her and I’d urge others not to run against her,” Frank said.
