Him Again
In Washington, perhaps no government body is more peculiar than the U.S. Senate.
Its highest-ranking officials are, respectively, Vice President Joseph Biden (by default the Senate president) and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who as the longest-serving senator is the chamber's "president pro tempore."
But they don't have much sway in daily business, and other senators routinely fill the ceremonial space at the front of the chamber. During proceedings this acting referee is called Mr. or Madam President, but really is just like any hardworking lawmaker, introducing bills, making arguments, etc.
Normally it's just a quirk of Senate procedure, but last week the rotation of presiding officers brought an awkward moment in debate over the most heated banking-related issue in Washington these days.
There was Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., a champion of the banking industry's hopes to push back a proposed cap on debit swipe fees, taking his turn with the gavel. Tester, who later failed by six votes to move a bill delaying the cap, had no choice but to introduce Dick Durbin, D-Ill., author of the original fee cap and lead opponent of Tester's bill.
"With some reservation, the senator from Illinois," Tester said.
Durbin, who under protocol would be addressing Tester directly, promised to be civil.
"Mr. President, there is a prohibition in the U.S. Constitution from cruel and unusual punishment, and the fact that you will be presiding in the chair when I am going to be speaking on an amendment which you are offering is truly cruel and unusual, but I am going to inflict it anyway," Durbin said. "I will try to be as gentle as I can in the process."
Brown vs. Warren
If you can't beat them, why not try to join them?
That could be the thinking behind increasing pressure for Elizabeth Warren, the de facto head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to run for Senate, where Republicans have said they will not confirm a director for her agency.
So far, however, polls are not encouraging. Public Policy Polling released a hypothetical matchup between Warren and Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., in which Warren trailed by 15 percentage points.
But Ezra Klein wrote on Friday in The Washington Post that if Brown were smart, he'd push his fellow Republicans to let her be nominated and confirmed to the CFPB rather than facing off against her in a general election.
"Though Brown's poll numbers are high, the state's political observers consider his support soft," Klein said, noting that Warren is enthusiastically supported by liberals. "Brown is now a senator, with gaffes and goofs of his own, while Warren is an outsider who fought the administration over Tarp and is waging a seemingly doomed battle to keep banks and credit card companies from screwing average Americans over."
Even the poll report indicated Warren may have a chance to gain ground. While it ranked her fourth among potential Democrats in the state facing Brown, it said she was not yet well known.
"Only 38% of voters know her well enough to have formed an opinion about her and when she's matched up against Brown, 27% of Democrats are undecided compared to only 3% of Republicans," the polling group said. "She has much more room to grow."
Price Moves On
Walter Price, a veteran of government-affairs shops at some of the nation's largest banks, has assumed the same role at the Charlotte, N.C., law firm Moore & Van Allen. From 2002 to 2010 Price was director of government relations for Wachovia Corp. Before that he was senior vice president for corporate affairs at Bank of America Corp. Most recently he ran the Washington office of U.S. Bancorp. Price also held leadership positions at several national trade associations.
Abele's New Post
The Clearing House Association last week named Rodney Abele as vice president for government affairs and legislative counsel.
Abele, whose official date of hire is June 20, previously was a senior counsel for Federal Financial Analytics Inc. He also held jobs in the office of Sen. Mary Landrieu and for the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Shreveport, La.
