The Senate has begun considering the #BankLobbyistAct, which will make it more likely that we have a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. This is a core part of the Republican agenda: siding with big banks, corporations, and the wealthy, at the expense of the rest of us. [Thread]
Mitch McConnell, Republicans, and Donald Trump don’t care about the enormous risk this creates for our country and for American families. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is that Democrats are pushing the #BankLobbyistAct over the finish line.
We’re seeing something that we often see from Democratic leadership — that might only be obvious to you if you’ve worked on the Hill or have covered the Hill. Dem leadership might be ostensibly opposed to this bill, but is LETTING this bill pass. Here’s how.
Dems are in the minority, but they have tools that they can use to stop or at least slow down this bill. The first is the vote on the Motion to Proceed, which has a 60 vote threshold. That means that McConnell needs at least 10 Democrats to move onto the bill.
The MTP is where a powerful Minority Leader could stop a bill they didn’t like, if they wanted to. In this case, @SenSchumer could ask his caucus to vote against the MTP and this would all be over. But he’s not asking Dems to vote against the MTP; the question is, why not?
There are only two explanations, each equally damning. The first is that Schumer doesn’t have control over his caucus, which is a bad place to be if you really want to be Majority Leader. It means that he can’t ask for Ds to vote against it because he knows they’ll ignore him.
The second is that @SenSchumer not-so-secretly wants this bill to pass. He’ll vote against it, to provide cover for himself, but he’ll do nothing to stop it from moving forward. This is the most likely explanation.
And to be clear, Schumer won’t even ask Dems to withhold their votes on the MTP as leverage to ensure that Democratic amdts -- including an amdt to prevent racial discrimination in lending -- get a vote.
So why would Schumer do this? He’s making the calculation that this bill brings him closer to becoming Majority Leader. That the bill allows moderate dems to raise campaign money from big banks, plus helps secure their loyalty to him.
The problem is that it comes at the cost of everyone else. We know from CBO that this bill increases the likelihood of bank failure and increases the deficit:
Unfortunately, this seems like a done deal. But this is an election year and we need to hold all of our MoCs accountable — Republicans and Democrats. And @SenSchumer needs to be held accountable for assisting rather than resisting. [End]
