Enter
members of the panel — informally known as the banking
committee — sat to the right or
just below the chairman; it can
take years, if not decades, for a
freshman representative to ascend up the risers.
The clerk called the roll,
starting from the top. Senior
Democrats roundly rejected
Campbell’s amendment. It
appeared as if the Democrats
would beat back the effort and
apply the same standard to
car dealers that was applied
to everyone else.
Then came the bottom two
rows, the place where reform
goes to die. Despite the disapproval of the powerful chairman and nearly every consumer group in the country, the
Campbell amendment passed
by a 47-21 margin.
As Grim and Delaney bottomlined it, this phenomenon was
essentially created by party bosses
pursuing perverse incentives.
Their purple-district freshmen
were among the most vulnerable members of their caucus.
Vulnerable members need large
war chests to fend off pesky challenges. Wall Street interests have
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
07.28.13
lots of cash with which to pad war
chests. And so those freshmen
found themselves on the front
lines of the committee dedicated
to financial reform — but deployed there to rake in campaign
cash, not to pursue reforms.
“In short, by setting up the
committee as a place for shaky
Democrats from red districts to
pad their campaign coffers, leadership made a choice to priori-
Senior Democrats
roundly rejected Campbell’s
amendment... then came
the bottom two rows, the place
where reform goes to die.”
tize fundraising over the passage
of strong legislation,” write Grim
and Delaney.
And that’s just one more way
that the system is broken and
things don’t get better. For you,
anyway! Things are going great for
these freshmen, because even if
they lose their seats to the vagaries
of purple-district politics, chances
are good that their benefactors
will remember their hard work,
and guide them toward the
gilded revolving door.