The AFR Advocacy Fund has released a voting record for the 114th Congress, “Where They Stand on Financial Reform.” This is a tool for journalists, advocates, and others to use in understanding how Congress as a whole, and individual lawmakers, have voted on issues related to oversight of banks and the financial system.
The report tracks more than 70 bills, amendments, and resolutions that presented House members and Senators with choices about protecting investors, consumers, or borrowers or strengthening the stability, transparency, or accountability of the financial sector.
Eight years after the financial crisis and six years after passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, most voters, regardless of political party, want the rules governing banks and lending companies to be strengthened, not weakened. (See Question 6 of AFR/CRL poll.) Many lawmakers echo that sentiment rhetorically. But the votes of many members tell a different story.
The nature of the measures voted on is also revealing in itself: the great majority of the bills and amendments brought to a vote in the current Congress – and in fact ever since the enactment of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms of 2010 – have been industry-backed proposals to weaken existing reforms or the agencies responsible for carrying them out. The report covers 10 separate votes, for example, on measures intended to limit the authority or political independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the only financial watchdog agency with a mandate to put the interests of consumers ahead of the power and profits of the big banks and lending companies.
Later in the week, AFR plans to issue a related report on financial industry lobbying and campaign contributions.