"This process isn’t a short-term, tomorrow issue," said Oliver Ireland, a partner at the law firm Morrison & Foerster. "It’s going to take a long time to work some of these things out."
The president’s point person on the effort is a former Goldman Sachs Groups Inc. partner, Gary Cohn, who is now the White House’s chief economic adviser. Cohn made the rounds on Capitol Hill and on television last week to promote the administration’s plan to ease financial rules more broadly, including for big banks, he said. But he didn’t offer many specifics.
“We’re going to need help from the House, we’re going to need help from the Senate and we’re going to give them help from the White House as well," Cohn told Bloomberg Television.
Republicans’ ability to re-write financial rules is further limited because most of the independent agencies that oversee financial companies, such as the Federal Reserve and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, still have Obama-era holdovers at the helm.
Trump also doesn’t yet have a full-time agency chairman in place at the Securities and Exchange Commission, nor has he announced who he’s picked to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In the meantime, unfilled slots at agencies are giving Democratic officials across the government a bigger say than they would otherwise.
If Republicans hit a wall on pushing unilateral changes to Dodd-Frank, there might be some room for some bipartisan deals. Such an effort would depend in part on Crapo’s ability to woo moderate Democratic lawmakers, particularly those facing tough re-elections next year in states Trump won. That includes Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. Virginia Democrat Mark Warner could also be crucial to advancing financial policy changes in the Senate.
But those Democrats aren’t likely to agree to big changes that the Trump administration has proposed, particularly provisions that would help the biggest banks, according to congressional aides.
Some of the most likely areas for bipartisan agreement include easing rules for community banks and credit unions, according to lobbyists and congressional aides.
"It’s incredibly difficult to be optimistic about any legislation given the political dynamics around Wall Street regulation," said Isaac Boltansky, a financial regulation analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading. "Dodd-Frank is the law of the land. Any changes will be slow and limited."
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.