Elizabeth Warren Not Taking Any Crap From Wall Street, Part Infinity

Democrats not interested in selling off ranking member on Banking Committee, no thank you.

Elizabeth Warren speaks in Chicago. Wonkette photo by Dominic Gwinn

When the new Republican-majority Senate convenes in January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) will become the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, on which she has served since she was first elected in 2012. The committee will be chaired by Tim “The less-awful Sen. Scott” Scott (R-South Carolina), and while the ranking member on a committee doesn’t really have any power to control the calendar or advance legislation, it’s generally understood that ranking members have first dibs to take over the chair when control of the Senate flips to their party.

And that explains a weird bit of attempted ratfucking by Wall Street lobbyists in the week since the election, as the American Prospect explains. The finance lobbyists, reportedly joined by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, attempted to keep Warren out of the ranking member job.

Good news spoiler alert: The ratfuck attempt failed. But it’s an illustration of just how rotten the financial industry is, and an even better illustration of how much Warren scares big-money financial interests, who wanted to prevent her from having any leadership authority over them in some future Senate.

The election took out the two senior Democrats ahead of Warren on the Banking Committee who might have advanced to become ranking member. Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Jon Tester (Montana) both lost to incompetent GOP nobodies because their states have gone deeply, pathologically Trumpy. In addition, two other Democrats with more seniority than Warren, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and John Warner of Virginia, currently chair other powerful committees (Armed Services and Intelligence, respectively) and they want to retain the ranking positions there when Dems become the minority. That opened up the ranking spot for Warren, because any senator can only be chair or ranking member of one committee at a time.

So here’s where the financial lobbyists tried to orchestrate a power play: With seniority, a senator can choose to take the ranking spot on any committee they serve on if they wanna. The Wall Street crowd tried to persuade Warner to jump over from Intelligence to Banking, and according to sources who requested anonymity, they were joined by Powell, who has frequently been a target of criticism from Warren.

Following the pandemic, Warren took Powell to task in public comments and in oversight hearings, arguing that the Fed pushed interest rates up too sharply, threatening the economic recovery. She also criticized Powell and the Fed for keeping rates high longer than it had to, even with the eventual “soft landing” from the inflation spikes of 2022.

As we already spoilered, the attempt to persuade Warner to take the ranking spot on Banking failed, because as Warner confirmed Tuesday, he would prefer not to. As for Powell’s part in the power play, American Prospect’s David Dayen says

It’s not clear whether Powell’s actions took the form of direct or indirect communications, just that there was some level of involvement. The role of Powell in the lobbying effort has not been previously reported.

After the article went to press, the Prospect received a statement from a Fed spokesperson denying the report, saying that “Chair Powell has never been directly or indirectly involved in congressional committee assignments.”

Dayen notes that the effort to derail Warren from even being next in line to chair the Banking Committee

faced long odds. Seniority is not something easily messed with; in a legislative body where a single senator can stop action and bring the chamber to a halt, everyone zealously guards the process by which they rise to power, and resists giving colleagues a reason to hold grudges that they can take out on their legislation.

Even before the scheme fell apart with Warner staying right where he wants, on Intelligence, Politico reported last week that the lobbyists had “resigned themselves” to Warren becoming the top Democrat on Banking.

For all we know they’ve also resigned themselves to helping Donald Trump impose fascism. A bit of iron-fisted one-man rule would be better for business than any potential curbs on financial speculation, like Warren’s proposed Stop Wall Street Looting Act aimed at reducing the damage the private equity industry does by taking over companies and gutting them for parts.

Dayen adds that even with Dems out of the majority,

the role of Powell in this debate may have reverberations next year. The Senate Banking Committee has oversight of Powell’s Federal Reserve, which prizes its political independence. Typically, it is frowned upon when entities try to pick their regulator or their oversight officials.

Then again, typically, it is frowned upon when presidents ask the Senate to recess and give up its role of confirming appointees, so we’re in fairly uncharted territory already. Who knows if there’ll even be a Senate Banking Committee, or a Senate, come 2026?

---

Lowest Unemployment Since 1969? Far Out, Man!

Trump To Senate: Nice Article II You Got There, Now Drown It In The Potomac

---

[American Prospect]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if you think it might influence our vote in some office we don’t even hold yet, you could try your hand at a one-time donation!