Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is trying to turn corporate America into her lobbyists.
“I urge you to use your financial leverage,” the Senate Banking Committee member and probable 2020 presidential candidate wrote to the head of BlackRock hedge fund, “as a major gun company shareholder to encourage more responsible actions by these companies.” Warren invoked what she said was BlackRock’s “duty to positively contribute to society” and instructed the executive that this means leaning on gunmakers and pushing more restrictions on gun use and ownership.
“Your company is in a powerful position,” she went on. “I urge you to begin to use your vast investment in gun manufacturers to prevent gun violence.”
Democrats used to say they were worried that big money, particularly big finance, had too much power in politics. That’s how the party tried to justify its proposal to regulate free speech with “campaign finance reform.” After the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that Congress may not stop groups from criticizing politicians close to the election, Democrats decried the phenomenon of corporations using their “powerful position” to put their thumb on the scale of political issues.
But that was then, and this is now.
Warren wants business to put their thumb on the political scales. Just so long as they put it on her side. This isn’t a first for her. The senator brags when she has the financial titans on her side, such as when her favored regulations please big firms that know it’ll help them crush smaller competitors. “The overwhelming voice of financial firms is clear,” Warren touted in one 2017 letter about a financial regulation, “they support the goals of this rule.” BlackRock was among the large financial firms on her side in that one.
Why would Warren urge businesses to use their power for political purposes, yet favor federal legislation to restrict corporate free speech? Squaring that circle isn’t difficult. Warren’s positions are not dictated by principle but by considerations of power. In both restricting free speech and in seeking BlackRock’s help in manipulating gun makers, what Warren wants is more control over other people.
Warren fights for taxpayer subsidies for the financial sector — think of her support for the Export-Import Bank and the Wall Street bailout — so she is no scourge of Wall Street.
She is perfectly consistent. She wants more federal regulation of finance, more subsidies of finance, bailouts of finance. She wants the big money houses inextricably bound to the federal government. Why? Because it will allow her to tell powerful firms such as BlackRock what to do.
Warren sits on the Banking Committee. Everyone knows she wants to run for president. Wall Street won’t risk telling her to buzz off.
What better way to gain control over the political activities of powerful companies than to increase the regulation and subsidization of top financiers?
Washington is a tawdry place, and politicians often conceal their motives. Warren, by contrast, doesn’t try very hard to hide what she’s up to.
