GOP Goes Solo on Financial Reform

Flickr/Gregory.Skibinski

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), whose financial-reform negotiations with Senate banking committee chair Chris Dodd (D-CT) broke down recently, is crafting a Republican version of financial reform with other GOP senators on the banking committee, Bloomberg reported today. The ranking member on the banking committee, Shelby had previously led financial-reform talks with Dodd, but those talks ended with an “impasse” between the two lawmakers. (Dodd has proceded with the talks with Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) since the schism.) Some attributed the breakdown to Shelby’s opposition to a standalone Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would oversee financial products, like subprime mortgages, and would consolidate consumer protection in a single independent agency.

Shelby’s new, GOP-only reform efforts, Bloomberg reported, would create a consumer protection division within an existing bank regulator, not a standalone agency. Shelby aides also told Bloomberg that the senator’s version of financial reform would protect taxpayers from the cost of unwinding too-big-to-fail financial institutions. Also getting a look in Shelby’s financial reform would be a consolidated bank regulator, an idea that’s gaining steam in Dodd’s financial-reform plans as well. Aides to Shelby said a lot of the details have yet to be ironed out, but that talks had been ongoing for a couple of months now.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate