By a vote of 34-26 along party lines, the House Financial Services Committee approved the "Financial CHOICE Act of 2017" (H.R. 10) (the "CHOICE Act"). The Republican-backed plan made a number of changes to Dodd-Frank and to various aspects of U.S. financial regulation. (See previous coverage for further detail on the content of the legislation.)

Democrats proposed 19 amendments to the Act, all of which were rejected. According to a summary by the Delta Strategy Group, a significant portion of the three-day markup session focused on (i) the causes of the financial crisis of 2008 and (ii) the activities of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Commentary / Nihal Patel

It is astounding that a 593-page piece of legislation can pass through the primary committee responsible for its content (following a three-day markup session) without a single amendment of any kind. This seems largely to be due to the binary nature of the debate, in which the two parties seem to be competing for the mantle of who can most oppose a generic group called "Wall Street" while being the bestest champion ever of a generic group called "community banks." Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), for his part, says that "Wall Street is doing just fine under Dodd-Frank," and that "many Wall Street CEOs are joining with Democrats to publicly oppose Dodd-Frank repeal." Meanwhile, ranking member Maxine Waters (D-CA) calls the CHOICE Act a "vehicle to help Wall Street."

Dodd-Frank and the CHOICE Act are very large wide-ranging pieces of legislation whose impacts have been (and/or will be) felt by the entire economy, both in the United States and abroad. It is incorrect to portray the CHOICE Act as a full "repeal" of Dodd-Frank, though significant pieces of it are repealed (e.g., the Volcker Rule and Orderly Liquidation Authority). Many aspects of Dodd-Frank are left untouched by the new legislation (e.g., Title VII (derivatives) is left largely as is).

The markup of this bill continues the simplistic partisan narrative that "Wall Street" uniformly either loves Dodd-Frank or loves the CHOICE Act. Even if Wall Street (or any other group) was uniformly in favor of one piece of legislation or another, why would that form the basis for the determination of whether a policy was good for the country as a whole?

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