Bank Deregulation Faces Difficult Odds in the Senate

03/27/17 – Law360 reports that a leading House Republican has expressed doubts that his proposed large-scale rewrite of U.S. financial regulations would pass through the Senate.

According to Law360, at the recent American Bankers Association Government Relations Summit in Washington, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said that he would release a revised version of his Financial CHOICE Act soon, but expressed doubt that his legislation would pass easily in the Senate, which requires a minimum of eight Democrats on board in order to pass large portions of the legislative package.

He stated that while many of the deregulatory goals that Republicans and the financial services industry seek to accomplish could be fulfilled by moves by the executive branch and financial regulatory nominees, any major legislation would have to get through the Senate.

Hensarling would be willing to move bills that address individual CHOICE Act components if they can get Senate support. For instance, a markup of a series of smaller bills meant to ease capital formation and address other securities issues occurred earlier this month in the Senate Banking Committee. Those bills received bipartisan support from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

However, Brown has made it clear that a repeal of Dodd-Frank was not going to happen on his watch.

Law360 (sub. req.).