The Republican chairman of the Senate Banking Committee delayed a mark-up of a banking reform bill Friday after all the Democratic members of the committee warned that they would oppose it if he moved forward with it next week as planned.
Complaining that Shelby has not shared the text of the bill with them, the panel’s 10 Democrats wrote in a letter to the Alabama senator Friday that they “we will be united in opposition if you go forward as planned.”
The fact that Shelby hasn’t given all Democrats time to review and analyze the proposal, they wrote, “does not speak well to the past history of bipartisanship on the Senate Banking Committee.”
Shelby orginally set a date of May 14 to mark-up legislation related to small bank relief, an effort that Democrats, including the panel’s ranking member Sherrod Brown of Ohio, have said they are interested in pursuing. Liberals on the panel such as Brown and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, however, also have expressed concern that the bill could become a vehicle for Republican efforts to roll back new rules on megabanks as well as community banks that do not threaten the financial system if they fail.
Shelby has not said what will be in the bill, but early reports suggest that it could include a number of large measures that could worry Democrats, such as changing the definition of banks subject to stricter regulations under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to exempt many more institutions.
The Banking Committee pushed the mark-up back to May 21st late Friday afternoon.
In addition to Brown and Warren, the Democrats on the panel are Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Chuck Schumer of New York, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.
