The House Financial Services Committee approved a Republican bill that would undo a host of Dodd-Frank Act reforms on Tuesday.
The Financial Choice Act cleared the committee on a near party-line vote, with the sole outlier a Republican who changed sides. Democrats called the bill a sham.
“This bill is so bad that it simply cannot be fixed,” Representative Maxine Waters, the panel’s ranking Democrat, said in a statement before the vote, Bloomberg News reported. “It’s clear that this is a rushed, partisan messaging tool, though why anyone would want to push legislation to deregulate Wall Street at a time like this is beyond me.”
Since it was proposed by Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, two months ago, the bill was seen by many as a campaign ploy since President Obama would have certainly vetoed it (if it ever got that far) and Republicans would not have had the votes to override.
Acknowledging the bill stood little chance of becoming law, Hensarling said Democrats never sought George Bush’s approval for legislation they passed when they controlled Congress and he was in the White House.
He did not say which President Bush he was speaking about.
In the little less than two hours the session went on, it did have the aura of an election debate.
Pushing for the CHOICE Act, Hensarling repeatedly spoke of it in terms Speaker Paul Ryan’s campaign mantra and hashtag for GOP House candidates—a “#betterway.”
At the same time, Waters and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the head Democrat on Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee, said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent success in uncovering Wells Fargo’s scheme to set up millions of phony credit card accounts and fining the bank $100 million showed why Dodd-Frank should not be weakened.
They criticized Hensarling for refusing to hold a hearing on the scandal while the Republican-controlled Senate Banking Committee had announced plans for one.