This is an analysis written in Spring 2018 for my Congress class at Portland State University
Robert Kaiser’s book An Act of Congress details the tribulations of passing the Dodd-Frank bill through Congress. Kaiser points out several actions that hindered and promoted the passage of this monumental bill. Kaiser’s insider view of the inner workings of Congress really put the reader in the heart of the rooms of power to see how legislation gets passed. This book should be used as a guidebook to any ambitious person of the law.
The Dodd-Frank act was the first major regulatory reform of Wall Street since the Great Depression. The Dodd-Frank act took a great deal of behind the scenes negotiating in a very difficult time for the country and Kaiser details how the negotiations took place and in what ways the lawmakers get things done, or lack thereof.
Kaiser states at the beginning of the book that “fear of being blamed might be the single most potent motivator in the House and Senate.” Since Congress is a status quo oriented organization, it takes quite a lot of pressure for them to take any major change. In the immediate fallout of the 2008 collapse, several meetings were had between the Treasury, members of Congress, and the President. Jim Wilkinson, chief of staff for Henry Paulson, who was head of the Treasury at the time, told Paulson that the only way to get congress to do anything was to scare “the shit” out of them. Paulson reflected after he returned to the private sector, that crisis is the only way to get things done in Washington.
These moments should be seized by ambitious politicians in the proper positions to further their ambitions. These historical crisis moments are excellent ways to bend your opposition to supporting your party’s stance as you can portray them as supporting the crisis and standing in the way of solving the problem. This method works best on House members as their election cycle is so much shorter. By controlling the narrative and using the media to your advantage, a strong congressional leader can use a crisis to make legacy setting legislation.
Congressman Barney Frank was pushed into getting the Dodd-Frank written and passed due to the financial crisis of 2008, as well as wanting to build his own legacy. The Dodd-Frank act checked many boxes for the Democrats in 2008. It punished the financial institutions, and fulfilled a long term Democrat plank, and it was so big, Congressman Frank viewed this as his key to legacy and a way to break the status quo orientation.
Congressman Frank had some great breaks in his career. Every advancement he came up for was vacated by someone retiring. These opportunities gave an already ambitious man the stairway up to the top. With Congress shifting to the Democrats in 2006, Congressman Frank was able to become Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, giving him the power to command the financial reform of 2009. The financial crisis of 2008 gave Congressman Frank the opening to push his ambitions higher through his chairmanship.Congressman Frank saw this as a major moment in American history and seized it to create his legacy legislation.
Another major lesson learned from the book is to be reliant on your staffers. Because of the way committee placement works in the House and Senate, a freshman representative rarely gets to choose what committee they get to sit on. This is where staff comes into play as they sometimes have served the committee for years, with multiple congress members. When Congressman Frank became chair of the Financial Services committee, he highered on the former chair’s chief staffer as she had worked with the committee for over a decade and had worked in the financial industry before. Direct knowledge like that is rarely had by representatives, other than the occasional veteran on the Armed Services Committees.
The need for staffers was highlighted further during the meetings Congresswoman Pelosi called for during the days after the beginning of the collapse of the financial institutions in 2008. She called key Senators and Representatives to a meeting with Paulson and Bernanke, so they could explain the situation. Congresswoman Pelosi limited the number of staffers to one or two, meaning a representative who did not have any experience in the financial system (which was everyone except Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank) needed to have an educated staffer on hand to interpret the arguments and situation.
These important lessons of using crises to your advantage, having a strong ambition, and retaining knowledgeable staffers are vital to any new congressperson. While a freshman congressperson cannot manufacture a crisis, having the fortitude to hold a position and push through good legislation will help in that chaotic time. Just getting to Congress requires a certain amount of ambition, but using that ambition, and a little luck, will get a new congressperson to the heads of committees much faster than a wallflower will. Finally having the right staff for the committees you sit on will bring vital knowledge from the industry you represent on your committees, that the average congressperson does not have.
All quotations and references taken from Kaiser’s An Act of Congress
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