A late night attempt to hold regulators and misbehaving financial companies more accountable was defeated in the US Senate on Tuesday, giving the Chamber of Commerce one last victory before the lights go out on the 113th Congress.
Just before ten o’clock in the evening, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) moved to pass the Truth in Settlements Act – a bill, co-written with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that she introduced earlier this year. It unanimously passed out of committee in September.
The transparency bill would require government agencies that settle with businesses accused of wrongdoing to publicly release the details of those accords
“The idea behind the bill is straightforward,” she said on the Senate floor. “If the government is going to cut deals on behalf of the American people, the American people are entitled to know what kind of a deal they’re getting. That’s the only way the public can hold agencies accountable.”
Sen. Warren’s bill would partially address an issue she highlighted in her February 2013 debut on the Senate banking committee, when she chastised federal regulators for settling with banks too often, instead of taking them to trial.
“Every time there’s a settlement and not a trial it means we didn’t have those days and days and days of testimony about what those financial institutions have been up to,” she told regulators. “I am really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.”
In response, on Tuesday night, Sen. Warren hoped to push her transparency bill through the Senate by unanimous consent; a procedure that allows for the passage of legislation without a roll call vote in the absence of an objection. The move was largely symbolic since no companion legislation had passed in the House before it went into recess last week.
Nevertheless, one lawmaker objected to the unanimous consent request. Without an explanation, Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) said he was objecting on behalf of Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas).
Efforts to reach the three Senators’ press offices in Washington, DC were unsuccessful, but on the floor of the Senate, Warren blamed one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington DC.
“I am disappointed but not surprised that there is an objection to this request because although there is bipartisan support for this bill and only one outside group has raised concerns, that group is the United States Chamber of Commerce,” she said.
Before saying she plans to reintroduce the legislation next year, she accused the business lobbying group of wanting to keep settlement agreements “hidden from view so that corporate wrongdoers don’t have worry about any real accountability for their illegal action.”
An inspector general report from earlier this year found that the Department of Justice’s investigative division “ranked complex financial crimes as the lowest of the six ranked criminal threats within its area of responsibility.” Data from Syracuse University shows that prosecution of financial fraud dropped off to historic lows following the financial crisis in 2008, despite widespread allegation of wrongdoing.
