It could have been a scene out of a Frank Capra movie (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”). Individual senators, with no background in finance or the securities industry and no relevant committee memberships, took to the Senate floor last week and began to offer amendments to the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010” (the financial reform legislation that Senator Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., has been carefully orchestrating for the last year). Normally, such amendments from junior senators (think of Jimmy Stewart in his role as “ Mr. Smith”) would have been quickly rejected for their naiveté, and the Senate would have moved on. But instead, last week, the atmosphere was very different, and these amendments passed by overwhelming margins, despite the opposition of Senator Dodd.
What explains this? The two amendments—one by Senator Al Franken, D.-Minn., and the other by Senator George S. LeMieux, R-Fla.,—both addressed the credit rating agencies (everyone’s favorite villain), and both proposed bold and easily understood answers to a complex problem. After weeks of hearings and enforcement actions directed at Goldman Sachs and other investment banks, Congress had heard the grassroots reaction, and their constituents clearly wanted change (and maybe some punishment too). They voted accordingly.
