Sen. Sherrod Brown, a prominent critic of Wall Street excess, will be the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Banking Committee in the 114th Congress.
The populist Ohioan announced Friday that he would be the ranking Democrat on the panel, leapfrogging more senior lawmakers including Charles Schumer of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey.
From his perch on the Banking Committee, Brown will be able to cause trouble for Wall Street banks seeking to shape laws and regulations affecting finance.
“This committee is about ensuring a fair set of rules for all financial institutions while protecting taxpayers and consumers,” Brown said in announcing that he would be ranking member.
“We must ensure transparency and accountability for Wall Street and access to credit on fair terms for Main Street,” Brown added.
Brown is in his second term as a senator, having been re-elected in 2012. During his tenure, he has been known for insisting on tough regulation of big banks. During the drafting of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, he co-authored a provision, ultimately voted down, that effectively would have broken up the largest Wall Street institutions.
More recently, he has teamed up with Louisiana Republican David Vitter to push much higher capital standards on large banks. Although that measure hasn’t moved in the Senate, regulators have acted in recent months to require significantly higher capital standards for the top banks.
Brown’s Republican counterpart on the committee will be Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, who in the past has endorsed tough measures on misbehaving bankers. He voted for Brown’s Dodd-Frank amendment, and more recently joined Massachusetts’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren in criticizing regulators for failing to jail executives complicit in financial fraud.
