We haven’t talked about Tom Carper in a while but he’s up to his usual mischief. Right now the Senate is debating amendments to the financial reform bill. So far the bill has turned out to be better than I expected but Tom Carper has an amendment which would weaken financial reform considerably. It’s an amendment that allows the federal government to pre-empt tougher state regulations:
That’s what makes a new amendment from Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., so dangerous. Carper’s plan is to ban states from enforcing their own laws against big national banks like Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Bank of America. This is an overt attempt to take cops off the beat and allow banks to get away with outright abuses. While doing lipservice to “strong consumer protection,” Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., John Ensign, R-Nev., D-Mark Warner, D-Va., Tim Johnson, D-S.D., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Evan Bayh, D-Ind., have all gone to bat for America’s largest banks.
This is the kind of amendment that can actually sink the bill if adopted. For years, federal bank regulators at the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) asserted broad powers to preempt state laws, and courts generally backed them. But in 2009, the Supreme Court reversed those decisions, giving states the ability to go after big banks through the court system. Carper’s amendment wouldn’t just institutionalize a destructive status quo — it would actively deregulate, further empowering banks to take advantage of the public.
Defeating the amendment would mean that states could pass tougher regulations on banks while ensuring a certain level of regulation. That means states won’t be able to weaken protections, but some states could experiment with stronger regulations.
Consumer advocacy groups are livid about the Carper amendment, and their intense pushback may keep the amendment from coming to a vote directly. So Carper is currently in negotiations with Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., about including Carper’s efforts in Dodd’s “manager’s amendment.” It’s extremely difficult for Senators to vote against the manager’s amendment, because it will include hundreds of small tweaks to different sections. It’s essentially a conglomeration of all the deals Dodd has cut with other Senators behind closed doors.
It wouldn’t hurt for you to put in a call to tell Carper and Kaufman that you oppose amendment 3949. If you know someone in Dodd’s district, tell them to call and urge Dodd not to include 3949 in the manager’s amendment.