Protecting Our Financial System

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Congress passed a package of reforms — the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — to help reign in predatory banking practices that hurt consumers and curb the excessive risk-taking that helped plunge our economy into the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Today, the House voted to pass a massive bill (S. 2155) that would undermine a number of protections at the heart of Dodd-Frank. While this bill sought to address some very legitimate challenges, the bad outweighed the good and I voted against it.

First, this bill would relax oversight and regulation of some of our nation’s largest financial institutions. Right now, banks that have assets totaling more than $50 billion — institutions whose failure could inflict major damage on our economy — are placed under heightened supervision. While there is merit to increasing that threshold, this bill goes too far and lifts the threshold from $50 billion to $250 billion — leaving all but the thirteen largest banks in our country without the maximum oversight necessary to ensure that their failure wouldn’t trigger another financial crisis.

Second, this bill would weaken protections that are designed to guard against racial discrimination — exempting 85% of institutions from reporting demographic information that helps regulators identify and prevent instances of bias in home lending.

While this legislation does include some reasonable provisions that I support and have voted for — especially regulatory relief for community banks — those measures can’t come at the expense of the safety and stability of our entire financial system.