Bentsen said he was especially struck when Obama appeared at AARP’s offices in February 2015 to announce the rule’s revival.

The event left some wondering when a U.S. president last made a personal plea for an adjustment to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. “That is just a sea change,” Bentsen said.

AARP wasn’t the only advocacy group that worked with the White House. Some, like the Consumer Federation of America, have fought for a fiduciary rule for years. Other backers included the AFL-CIO labor federation, Americans for Financial Reform and Better Markets.

Also significant, people involved say, was Perez, who made the rule’s enactment a priority when he became secretary in 2013. He personally briefed members of the House and Senate and called advocates before key developments, according to a copy of his daily appointment calendars for the first half of last year.

Democrats’ Opposition

With the White House interested in showing its support for Main Street, as opposed to Wall Street, the fiduciary regulation got fresh attention toward the end of 2014. It had first been proposed in 2010 and then withdrawn by Labor the next year after industry lobbying sparked bipartisan complaints.

This time, the rule was given a make-over. First, the term “fiduciary” was de-emphasized. Instead, an easier-to-understand concept, brokers’ conflicts of interest, was highlighted. Driving the point home, the president’s Council of Economic Advisers claimed in a study that retirement savers lost up to $17 billion annually due to excessive commissions, high fees and other dubious practices.

A few weeks after the study was made public in January 2015, the White House reached out to AARP and other consumer groups to invite them to a “closed press and off the record” session with senior officials from the National Economic Council and Labor. The plan, an e-mail said, was to discuss “campaign efforts.”

The biggest of those came when Obama made his announcement. AARP and the Labor Department closely consulted about the 40 guests the association could invite, according to e-mails.

Reid, Schumer