Blog

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

From Judge Kennedy: Shelby puts Wall Street before Main Street

In an effort to water down the authority of the new consumer protection bureau established by the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, Senator Richard Shelby has threatened to block any nominee to head up the agency — no matter how qualified.

We deserve better than these kinds of ridiculous partisan games. Senator Shelby is demanding he get the toothless Wall Street watchdog he wants or he’ll take his ball and go home. If that’s how he thinks government should work, he should go back to the playground so we can send a responsible Senator to DC.

Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate banking committee, has said he will not consider any appointee, including former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, until the consumer protection board's authority is weakened. During his time as Attorney General, Cordray worked tirelessly to help protect Ohio consumers from financial predators and recovered more than $2 billion for Ohio retirees and business owners.

Senator Shelby won’t be happy until big Wall Street interests can get back to the kind of irresponsible banking practices that led to the collapse of banks like AIG and Lehman Brothers. Maybe when Alabamians can donate the kind of money Shelby has gotten from the finance industry he’ll decide to make Main Street a priority too.