In May 2015, Americans for Financial Reform released a report showing how members of the 113th Congress voted on a selection of important bills, amendments, motions and nominations touching on the structure and regulation of the U.S. financial system. Through the votes described and tabulated here, lawmakers have left a record of their actions when facing
In recent months there have been calls to roll back regulation of large regional banks – institutions that hold over $50 billion in assets but are not among the eight U.S. mega-banks with a global footprint. In response to unfounded claims about the treatment of large regional banks under the Dodd-Frank Act, AFR has sent a briefing paper to congressional staff as well as the press.
Section 953b of the Dodd-Frank Act requires banks and other large public corporations to disclose the pay of their CEOs as a multiple of the pay of their median employees. Of the 400-odd rules mandated by Dodd-Frank, this one is arguably the simplest. But CEOs have lobbied against it both at the SEC and in Congress, and four years after the law was enacted, the Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to put the pay-ratio provision into effect.
Nearly five years after the financial crisis, a new national poll – conducted on behalf of Americans for Financial Reform and the Center for Responsible Lending – shows continued bipartisan support for tougher regulation of the financial industry and its products and services. A sweeping majority of voters (78%) believe that financial rules and enforcement need to be strengthened, and that Wall Street’s bad practices have not changed enough.
“Department enforcement plays a critical role in ensuring banks and payment processors meet [their] legal obligations,” the lawmakers say in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. “Unfortunately, recent cases demonstrate the seriousness of the consequences when those obligations are not met. Accordingly, we urge the Department to enforce vigorously applicable laws pertaining to payment fraud, money-laundering, and other illegal payments…”