Sanders voted for a more benign version of that bill. He also voted for the final worst one along with many others that was slammed/snuck through
And goddamn read his speeches and testimony and legislative actions at the time.
I get so sick Clinton supporters harping on one slip-up by Sanders, by people who are apologists for the far worse and deliberate actions of Bill Clinton on those issues.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-wall-street_5617f634e4b0dbb8000e5a58
"No one has a stronger record on reforming Wall Street and breaking up too-big-to-fail banks than Senator Sanders," said Warren Gunnels, senior policy adviser to Sanders. "He strongly spoke against repealing Glass-Steagall because he was afraid that it could cause a financial crisis like the one we saw in 2008. And he's going to do everything possible to break up the too-big-to-fail banks."
When Sanders voted for the House version of the CFMA in October 2000, the bill was not yet a total debacle for Wall Street accountability advocates. The legislative text Sanders supported was clearly designed to curtail regulatory oversight. The GOP-authored bill was crafted as a response to a proposal from ex-Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Brooksley Born to ramp up oversight of derivatives. But the version Sanders initially voted for was more benign than the final, Gramm-authored version, and it didn't draw any of the protests that the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall did. In October 2000, the bill passed the House by a vote of 377 to 4 (51 members didn't vote), and then sat on the shelf for weeks.
But in December, Gramm -- after coordinating with top Clinton administration officials -- added much harder-edged deregulatory language to the bill, then attached the entire package to a must-pass 11,000-page bill funding the entire federal government. After Gramm's workshopping, the legislation included new language saying the federal government "shall not exercise regulatory authority with respect to, a covered swap agreement offered, entered into, or provided by a bank." That ended all government oversight of derivatives purchased or traded by banks. He also created the so-called "Enron Loophole," which barred federal oversight of energy trading on electronic platforms.
This was an era in which voting against funding the federal government was considered a major governance faux pas. The bill sailed through both chambers of Congress, with few lawmakers even aware of the major new deregulatory changes.
Sanders has since hammered the CFMA, its architects and specific provisions in Senate hearings and on the Senate floor. He helped push through legislation to close the Enron loophole in 2008. He voted against the bank bailouts of 2008, and has cried foul on heavy Wall Street speculation in the derivatives market for oil, saying it needlessly drives up gas prices. He has voted to break up the largest banks, and supports reinstating the Depression-era firewall between conventional lending and risky securities trading.
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