DEMOCRATS WHO COLLABORATED on the bank deregulation lawpassed earlier this year have categorically insisted that it only benefits small community banks and credit unions.
Take Sean Patrick Maloney, a House Democrat who is simultaneously running for both re-election and New York attorney general — the so-called Sheriff of Wall Street position. He was asked recently on a local radio show about his yes vote.
“If you look at the African-American Credit Union Association and the African-American small bankers, they are the guys who benefited from easing some of the restrictions,” Maloney said, using lenders of color as a shield for his vote. Maloney maintained that the legislation “didn’t touch any of the important restrictions we put on the big banks.” It’s been his go-to refrain each time he’s been pressed on the Dodd-Frank rollback, echoing a chorus of lawmakers singing songs of sincere deregulatory innocence.
But a letter sent by seven Senate Republicans last week suggests that the law is trying to do precisely what its critics warned: provide regulatory relief for some of the largest banks in the country.
The letter, headlined by Senate Banking Committee member David Perdue, R-Ga., is a classic Washington document, “signed” by members of Congress but transparently prepared by lobbying groups looking to add congressional backing for their priorities. While the bill’s author, Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, isn’t on the letter, that’s likely because it would be messy to have the senator who promised Democrats in negotiations that big banks wouldn’t benefit from the legislation turn around and assist the lobbying efforts of those very institutions.
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