Warren’s Nomination Becoming More of a RealityBy: David Dayen Friday July 23, 2010 1:14 pm
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Felix Salmon says that Elizabeth Warren is a shoo-in for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not because of any inside knowledge he has, but because progressives have turned up the heat so much to make it too painful for the Administration not to nominate her.
Warren is known to have powerful friends in the White House, which means that there’s really only one possible obstacle to her getting nominated: Tim Geithner. Dan Froomkin, for instance, reckons that “the only way Warren will get the job is if Geithner is overruled”. But if you look at the tone of Geithner’s comments to Rose, he hardly seems dead-set against her. And no Treasury secretary, least of all Geithner, likes going against the wishes of the White House. Geithner is at heart a technocrat, rather than a fighter or an ideologue, and he’s certainly no master of the dark political arts. If he was ever trying to prevent Warren’s nomination — and I’m not convinced that he was — then he has at this point been convincingly outmaneuvered. The game’s over; her nomination is a done deal.
I’m a bit more skeptical about it than Salmon, but it’s true that progressives organized around the Warren nomination in ways that I wish they would have at some points in the FinReg fight. It speaks well that advocates have understood the importance of the regulators writing the rules as much as, if not more than, Congress granting the authority. This has been an effort on the inside and outside. Carolyn Maloney ended up with 57 House Democrats, including House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank, on her letter touting Warren; Tom Harkin’s letter nabbed 12 Senators. Activists have made an aggressive series of arguments, particularly Mike Konczal in this post about how Warren’s actions on the HAMP program argue for her nomination:
The Congressional Oversight Panel, lead by Warren, has been at the lead at making information public and bringing the complaints of the people straight to those in power. (It falls under her jurisdiction because HAMP uses TARP money.) When you see the fights on youtube between Warren and Geithner, the biggest ones, the ones that make Geithner cringe the most, it is about how HAMP isn’t working. Click through on that link to watch a video that gets straight to this. She demands accountability from the government and from the banking sector on the single most important issues facing Americans right now.
This is important. There’s pressure to be quiet, to hope that a quick housing and economic recovery will just make this whole foreclosure crisis go away. But Warren has demanded answers. COP released a report in early 2009 about the problems with HAMP, data collection and foreclosure, a report that still stands up. She’s done that at every step of TARP, but it matters here specifically for consumer protection.
And this is exactly how the CFPA should work. They fight to get good information disclosed to the public about how the banks and the Treasury department are failing the American people, reporters and wonks explain the information to the public, Treasury is held accountable. Treasury is currently working overtime to make HAMP work better; every month they are putting pressure where they can to make it better. That’s how a healthy government is supposed to work, but it can only be done if the tone is set by an outsider. And Elizabeth Warren is the one qualified with a proven track record in standing up to the banks and to the Treasury.
This opinion leadership, from Konczal and elsewhere, has floated up to the traditional media, where the narrative of Warren as the perfect choice to lead the agency she invented. Her ability to transparently lay bare the tricks and traps set by the bankers – as a business decision – will provide a boon to consumers who have been ravaged by the system for decades.
This has added a price to the nomination. As for the common arguments being laid against her, that she lacks managerial experience and that she isn’t confirmable, the Administration has nullified those arguments in the person of Donald Berwick. The new Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had no prior managerial experience either, and Republicans were gearing up for a major confirmation battle. But Obama recess-appointed him because he wanted a visionary implementing his consequential legislative reform. So too with Warren. And that’s also why the White House will not be able to nominate and hold Warren, the way they did with Dawn Johnsen. The advocates fighting fiercely for Warren just won’t put up with that.
I think a lot will become clearer over the next few days, but I’m guardedly optimistic. And the progressive advocacy groups should take a lot of the credit.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention Tim Geithner’s on the record praise of Warren yesterday. The Administration is suddenly in a box on this issue.
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Link:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/07/23/warrens-nomination-becoming-more-of-a-reality/Good!
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