Washington: Washington is infamous for its "revolving door" job market, but Robert R. Davis is changing employers so fast he must be getting dizzy.
A month after taking a consulting job at the American Bankers Association, he's rejoined his previous shop, America's Community Bankers.
Last week Mr. Davis was named director of government relations for the thrift trade group, filling a slot left by Randall McFarlane, who last week became director of congressional affairs for the Federal Housing Finance Board.
Mr. Davis said ABA officials recognized he was getting a "great opportunity" and took his abrupt departure well.
He was chief economist at America's Community Bankers for the last three years, and has never held a true lobbying post. But he said lobbying has been a peripheral part of his duties over the years, and he's prepared to lead Capitol Hill relations for America's Community Bankers.
"It's a logical extension of things I did before," he said. "I've had an interest in lobbying for a long time."
Before joining the thrift trade group in 1993, Mr. Davis served on the board of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He also was chief economist for Congress' Joint Economic Committee.
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Washington attorney Brooksley Born was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday - nearly five months after the resignation of Mary Schapiro as chairman.
Ms. Born is currently a partner with the law firm of Arnold & Porter, heading its futures practice. Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., has expressed concern over Ms. Born's friendship with Hillary Rodham Clinton, and noted that the job at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission might put her in a position to oversee investigations into the First Lady's past commodity trading activities.
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Missouri Commissioner of Finance Earl Manning was to become chairman of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors during the group's annual meeting over the weekend, replacing James A. Hansen, Nebraska's director of banking and finance.
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Treasury Under Secretary Jerry Hawke was downright glum last week about Glass-Steagall reform.
He warned bankers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's bank structure conference to be "exceedingly wary" of the expedient political compromise.
"Any deal that is struck today could have the effect of defining the market place for decades into the future," Mr. Hawke said. "It might well be that no legislation today is preferable to legislation that simply repeats the themes of the past: resolve political conflict by dividing markets and subordinating national interests to local interests."
