Populist Reform of the Democratic Party

Last edited Fri Oct 2, 2015, 06:53 AM - Edit history (1)

I used to say to our audiences: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935), ISBN 0-520-08198-6; repr. University of California Press, 1994, p. 109

http://billmoyers.com/content/a-senators-prophetic-words-then-and-now/

Rep. Sanders, Rep Dingell and Senator Dorgan, among others, predicted what would happen if Gramm, Leach, Bliley passed. The other day, eridani posted about Sanders on this. Bill Moyers covered Dorgan.
http://billmoyers.com/content/a-senators-prophetic-words-then-and-now/

Dingell:

House: 151 Democrats voted yea, only 55 voted nay, with 5 not voting

House vote: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/106-1999/h570

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll570.xml (shows who did not vote)



Senate vote: Originally, only one Democratic Senator, Fritz Hollings, voted yea and 44 voted nay.

Senate vote https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/106-1999/s105

But, I seem to recall that there was another vote for some reason, with more Senators voting yea. That does not seem to make sense, but I remember having been corrected on this point when I claimed only one Democrat had voted for it.

"Talk" about the wiki article on Gramm, Leach, Bliley indicates both that GLB was responsible for economic collapse and that the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, also signed by Clinton, was what allowed mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps, which many saw as the reason for collapse. It also states that, at some point, Bill Clinton said that Summers and Rubin had been wrong about the CFMA and he had been wrong to take their advice on it.

The wiki for the CMFA cites that, but also cites a quote in which Clinton defended the CMFA. It cites a source saying Clinton lied. In fact, the Clinton White House had lobbied for passage. The act had an allegedly veto proof majority, which the Clinton White House often lobbied Democrats hard for. It's what he often cited during his post-presidency, as though that somehow excused his signature. In fact, the only way to tell if a vote is veto proof is to veto the bill.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_Futures_Modernization_Act_of_2000

For some reason, I cannot find the votes on the Act in the form that passed the Senate. All I can find in Thomas is the vote on a bill that did not pass the Senate, the last action shown being receipt by the Senate. The House version, for which Sanders did vote, did not include the compromise that allowed mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps. Greenspan admitted to having been wrong on this.

https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2009/04/01/read-the-bill-the-commodity-futures-modernization-act/


ETA. See also http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-blumenthal/how-congress-rushed-a-bil_b_181926.html