The Democratic National Committee has selected bank board member and Clinton ally Barney Frank to co-chair the party’s rules committee, a move that could aggravate Bernie Sanders’ attempt to push his anti-big bank agenda at the Democratic Convention in July.
Frank, a former Massachusetts congressman who introduced the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is a vocal critic of Sanders’ plan to break up big banks. He is also on the board of directors of a bank worth $29 billion as of June 2015, and has said that he is “very supportive of banking.”
In April, Frank accused Sanders of “a kind of McCarthyism” for claiming that politicians have yet to dismantle big banks because of the influence of Wall Street campaign contributions.
Sanders, meanwhile, has said that Hillary Clinton is “dependent on big money interests” and has condemned her for refusing to release the transcripts to her pricey Wall Street speeches.
Frank will co-chair the rules committee with Clinton supporter and Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy, who has called Sanders’ gun control stance “dead wrong.”
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who co-chaired Clinton’s 2008 campaign, appointed Frank and Malloy.
The Sanders campaign has voiced concern over the appointments but has not yet decided whether it will protest them formally, according to USA Today.
“Like a lot of these issues, we’ll deal with that in due course,” Sanders campaign adviser Tad Devine said. He maintained that the Sanders campaign still sees the convention as a chance to shape the Democratic Party’s platform and rules.
Despite tension, the Clinton campaign has brushed off the possibility of a fractured party at the convention.
“We are not at all worried about or concerned about our ability to unite the Democratic Party at the end of this process,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said Wednesday.
