Staring into an electoral abyss, Sen. Claire McCaskill snapped last week and joined Republicans to significantly dismantle Obama-era fiscal regulations. Now the vulnerable Missouri Democrat has sought penance from the patron saints of those banking rules, retired Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and former Rep. Barney Frank, D-N.Y.
Don’t worry about the reforms to the legislation that bears their name, Dodd and Frank wrote in an email endorsement circulated by the McCaskill campaign. “We know this because we are the ‘Dodd’ and ‘Frank’ in Dodd-Frank!” the duo said before dismissing the GOP reforms and adding that McCaskill would always work for voters, “not the special interests or the banking lobbyists.”
But there is just one problem with that promise. Frank now sits on the board of directors at a big bank with a vested interest in fiscal deregulation, and Dodd is literally a banking lobbyist.
The letter looks desperate. Democrats fear that the progressive base could buck incumbents this November in red states that Trump won after 17 of those senators voted to exempt all but the large banks from what could be the biggest rewrite of fiscal regulation since the Reagan administration. Dodd and Frank have subsequently been called back to somehow explain how a rollback of their marquee achievement isn’t a complete defeat.
Good luck. The whole thing is preposterous. First, the Dodd-Frank overhaul neuters Obama-era banking regulations. Second, Dodd and Frank have spun through the revolving door so fast, they’re dried husks of their former selves.
After three decades in Congress, Dodd joined the lobbying firm Arnold and Porter as a senior counsel this January. That lobbying firm could hardly contain its excitement. “He will be an effective strategic advisor and valued counselor to clients on a wide range of important legislative and policy issues,” read a press release announcing the move. What would be the chief priority on his agenda? “Financial services.”
Shortly before Dodd signed on as a lobbyist, Arnold and Porter nabbed First Trust Savings Bank as a client. Lobbying on that banks behalf and against regulation, the firm made $50,000 last quarter.
While Frank hasn’t registered as a lobbyist like Dodd, he joined the board of directors of Signature Bank three years earlier in 2015. That bank supported an overhaul of Dodd-Frank making them exempt from regulation of the so-called Financial Stability Oversight Council if they make under $250 billion rather the original $50 billion.
While anyone with a free market mindset will cheer for deregulation, anyone watching McCaskill has to question her sincerity. There is something odd about slamming special interests and lobbyists then touting the endorsement of special interests and lobbyists.
