THE DISMANTLING OF POST-CRASH FINANCIAL INDUSTRY REFORMS

Many in Congress and the Trump administration have either forgotten or don’t care about protecting us from the risky and corrupt behavior of Wall St. financial corporations that caused the 2008 economic collapse and Great Recession. They are repealing, weakening, or failing to implement the policies that were put in place to reduce the likelihood that such behavior and events would happen again. Keep in mind that those policies didn’t go far enough to prevent such as event from happening again – such as breaking up to too-big-too-fail financial corporations or separating risky financial trading activity from federally-insured consumer banking.

The Dodd-Frank Law was the major piece of legislation passed to reform the financial industry and reduce the likelihood of another meltdown. It included the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to protect consumers from unsavory practices by financial corporations, such as the making of mortgage loans that were highly likely, if not certain, to be unaffordable for the home owners.

The financial industry has fought the implementation of these new safeguards; industry-friendly regulators have moved so slowly that some of the provisions of the Dodd-Frank Law are just finally getting implemented eight years later. For example, the simple requirement that corporations disclose the ratio of the pay of the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to that of the midpoint of workers’ pay is just now being implemented. Honeywell Corporation just reported that its CEO made 333 times what it’s median employee earns. And it didn’t include the pay of employees in developing countries, which undoubtedly would have increased the ratio. Most measures of the CEO-to-worker pay ratio have found CEO pay to be between 200 and 350 times the pay of the median worker. Fifty years ago, the ratio was roughly 20 and even Harvard Business School gurus felt at the time that this ratio should be a ceiling on CEO pay. [1]

Meanwhile, Congress and the Trump administration, at the urging of Wall St. lobbyists, have been dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, including:

Weakening regulations that reduce the risk of big financial corporations going bankrupt
Blocking or repealing consumer protection regulations from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
Stopping enforcement actions of the CFPB
Weakening the CFPB’s independence and effectiveness

Regulations that limit the risks from speculative financial transactions by big financial corporations are being weakened. Industry-friendly regulators plan to weaken the so-called Volcker Rule, thereby giving banks more flexibility to engage in financial trading activity that can be highly profitable but also vulnerable to big losses. Given that these banks also have consumer deposits that are federally insured, big losses could lead to the need for taxpayer bailouts (again). [2] Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve banking and oversight system, had recommended this regulation to limit financial corporations from engaging in financial risk-taking when government-funded-insurance would end up covering any big losses. The six largest US financial corporations have spent millions of dollars lobbying for this change. (They are Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.)

Federal regulators are also proposing to reduce that amount of a financial corporation’s own money that must be available to cover any losses from lending, trading, speculating, and other activities. Currently, financial corporations must have only 6 cents of their own money (reserves) for every dollar of potential financial liability. This would mean that if the corporation sustained losses of just 6% on the tens of trillions of dollars of loans, trades, speculative investments, etc. that it has, that it would be bankrupt and looking for a government (i.e., taxpayer) bailout.

In 2008, the reserve requirement was only 3 cents on every dollar and the big financial corporations had losses of twice that amount. Therefore, the government and taxpayers had to provide trillions of dollars to bail them out and prevent bankruptcies that would have caused a much more severe economic collapse.

Given the experiences of 2008, it seems foolish to be reducing the reserves that financial corporations must hold to cover losses. However, reducing reserves and increasing leverage (as it is referred to) allows the financial corporations to make more and bigger financial transactions, which, if all goes well, can increase their profits. However, it also increases the risk that a bailout will be needed. [3]

The financial corporations claim that a reduction in reserve requirements will allow them to make more loans to spur business growth and the economy. However, there is no evidence of unmet demand for loans and experience indicates that the financial corporations will actually use the reduction in reserves to pay more to shareholders and executives, buyback stock, and engage in speculation and non-banking activities.

Note that the big financial corporations are all reporting record profits even before any of these changes goes into effect. Banks, overall, reported $56 billion in profits during the first quarter of 2018, up 28% from a year earlier. [4]

In May, Congress passed, and the President signed, a law reducing the stringency of the oversight of banks, weakening the oversight that the Dodd-Frank Law put in place to reduce the risk of bankruptcies and government bailouts. The 26 banks with between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets (including American Express and Ally Financial) are now exempt from the strictest oversight. The 12 biggest banks will still be subject to the strictest oversight, although they can probably take advantage of some of the weakening of oversight in the law.

One result of the law is expected to be mergers of small and medium size banks because they can get bigger without triggering stricter oversight. The law also exempts “small” banks (under $10 billion in assets) from the Volcker Rule banning risky financial speculation and from reporting detailed data on borrowers that was targeted at preventing discrimination. [5]

I urge you to contact your U.S. Representative and Senators and to ask them to support strong regulation of the big financial corporations. Encourage them not only to oppose efforts to weaken the regulations and oversight put in place by the post-collapse Dodd-Frank Law, but to strengthen regulations and oversight to prevent, not just reduce the likelihood of, another financial industry collapse and crisis for the economy. The weakening of the regulations and oversight of the big financial corporations is increasing the likelihood of another financial sector collapse that would do serious damage to our economy and require a government, taxpayer-funded bailout.

You can find your US Representative’s name and contact information at: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/. You can find your US Senators’ names and contact information at: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1] Meyerson, H., 2/22/18, The American Prospect blog (http://prospect.org/blog/on-tap?page=6)

[2] Flitter, E., & Rappeport, A., 5/30/18, “Big banks to get a break from limits on risky trading,” The New York Times

[3] Hoenig, T.M., & Bair, S.C., 4/26/18, “Relaxing bank capital requirements would risk another crisis,” Wall Street Journal

[4] Thomhave, K., 5/25/18, “A Great Deal for Banks, Not So Much for American Jobs,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/blog/tapped/great-deal-banks-not-so-much-american-jobs)

[5] Werner, E., 5/25/18, “Trump signs bill easing banking rules passed after crisis,” The Boston Globe from the Washington Post

STOPPING GERRYMANDERING; RESTORING DEMOCRACY

Gerrymandering, the manipulation of the boundaries of electoral districts to predetermine outcomes, has become more blatant, dramatic, and effective in the 21^st century. Please see my previous post for a discussion of how extreme partisan gerrymandering is undermining our democracy. The redrawing of electoral districts is done every ten years after new population data is available from the Census. Typically, state legislatures do the redistricting, and these partisan, elected officials have a built-in incentive to engage in partisan and other types of gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering can be stopped through multiple strategies:

Challenging gerrymandered districts in court,
Establishing standards for districts and the redistricting process, and
Creating non-partisan commissions to do the redistricting.

Districts that appear to be gerrymandered are being challenged in state and federal courts. In Pennsylvania, state courts ruled that the districts drawn after the 2010 Census were illegally gerrymandered and the US Supreme Court upheld this finding. There are currently two other cases before the US Supreme Court, one from Wisconsin challenging Republican gerrymandering and one from Maryland challenging Democratic gerrymandering. Decisions are expected to be announced this month. Unfortunately, these decisions will probably be too late to allow the gerrymandering to be fixed before the 2018 elections. [1]

Another solution to gerrymandering is to write standards into state or federal laws that govern how districts are drawn and the redistricting process used to draw them. There are several statistical tests that can be done of historical election results to identify whether gerrymandering is likely to have played a role in the outcomes. These tests can also be applied to projected results based on party enrollment and past voting patterns in proposed districts. [2] [3] These tests are valuable because they can be used during the redistricting process or by courts afterwards to determine if districts are being drawn fairly.

Perhaps, most promising is the creation by states of truly non-partisan, independent redistricting commissions that remove redistricting from the hands of partisan legislatures. Currently, twenty-one states use some form of redistricting commission for redrawing either or both of state legislative districts and congressional districts. Some are more independent of partisan political influence than others. [4]

The use of and interest in redistricting commissions is growing. In 2017, 29 state legislatures considered bills related to creating redistricting commissions. In the Pennsylvania legislature, a bill to create a redistricting commission is gaining significant support. In other states, citizens are putting measures to create redistricting commissions on the ballot. In Ohio, a badly gerrymandered state, 75% of voters recently approved a proposal on the ballot to extend the role of their independent redistricting commission to include congressional districts, in addition to state legislative districts. This was forced on elected officials by a grassroots campaign that collected nearly 250,000 signatures. Michigan is likely to have a proposal on its November 2018 ballot to create such a commission because of a grassroots organization that collected 425,000 signatures. Redistricting reforms are likely to appear on the ballot this fall in Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri, and Utah. These redistricting reform efforts are backed by strong bipartisan coalitions. [5] [6]

Gerrymandering is a significant threat to representative democracy as it undermines the basic tenet that every voter has an equal voice. It distorts democracy and lets the voices of a small subset of voters, often those with extreme views, dominate elections. The elected representatives, therefore, tend to reflect these minority and often extreme views, leading to extreme partisanship and gridlock in our legislative bodies.

In gerrymandered districts, many voters, with good reason, don’t feel they have a voice and that their elected officials don’t represent their interests and points of view. The broad support for ending extreme partisan gerrymandering is bipartisan: 80% of Democrats, 68% of independents, and 65% of Republicans back efforts to end it.

I urge you to contact your representatives in your state legislature and ask them to ensure fair redistricting after the 2020 Census. If you’re in one of the states mentioned above as likely to have a relevant ballot question in November, I encourage you to find information on the effort to reform redistricting and then get involved if you can. To learn more about the redistricting process in your state, the National Conference of State Legislatures has information here, and if you’re interested in knowing if there was a bill filed in your state legislature relative to the creation of a redistricting commission look here. For more information on ending gerrymandering and other reforms to our voting systems in general, Fair Vote has lots of information on its website.

[1] Wheeler, R., 2/28/18, “The Supreme Court and partisan gerrymandering cases,” The Brookings Institution (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2018/02/28/the-supreme-court-and-partisan-gerrymandering-cases/)

[2] Wang, S., & Remlinger, B., 9/25/17, “Slaying the partisan gerrymander,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/slaying-partisan-gerrymander)

[3] Royden, L., Li, M., & Rudensky, Y., 3/23/18, “Extreme Gerrymandering & the 2018 midterm,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/extreme-gerrymandering-2018-midterm)

[4] Wikipedia, Retrieved from the Internet 6/4/18, “Redistricting commission” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistricting_commission)

[5] Rapoport, M., 12/7/17, “Prospects brightening for redistricting reform,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/prospects-brightening-redistricting-reform)

[6] Daley, D., 6/14/18, “Voters take charge in making elections more fair,” The Boston Globe

GERRYMANDERING IS UNDERMINING OUR DEMOCRACY

Gerrymandering, the manipulation of the boundaries of an electoral district to predetermine the outcome based on party, race, incumbency, or other factors, has been happening for a long time. Traditionally, it was used to protect individual incumbents or to limit black and minority representation.

Typically, the state legislature redraws the boundaries of its state’s electoral districts with the new Census data available every ten years. With the 2020 Census coming up soon, there are efforts that some believe are meant to undercount hard-to-reach populations such as low-income households, minorities, and immigrants. (See my previous post for more detail.) If this occurs, it would mean that these residents will be under-represented when electoral districts are drawn, and, therefore, their voice and representation in state and federal legislative bodies would be diminished.

Gerrymandering has become more blatant, dramatic, and effective in the 21^st century. It has been both fueled and exacerbated by partisanship and extremism in our state and national legislative bodies. It has been facilitated by increasingly sophisticated computer technology for mapping, analyzing, and tracking voters’ preferences and history. Historically, both Democrats and Republicans have engaged in gerrymandering.

Independent analyses find that in the redrawing of districts for the US House of Representatives following the decennial Censuses from 1970 to 2000, Democrats engaged in what’s called extreme partisan gerrymandering in one state after each of these four redistricting cycles. This occurred most dramatically in California in 1980. At its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, the best estimates are that through gerrymandering Democrats gained 3 – 5 seats in the House (out of 435 seats) above what would have otherwise been expected. After the 2010 Census, the Democrats did not engage in extreme partisan gerrymandering in any state. [1]

In redistricting after the 2000 and 2010 Censuses, independent analyses of the redrawing of districts for the US House find that Republicans engaged in extreme partisan gerrymandering in four states and seven states, respectively. The best estimates are that Republicans currently gain, through gerrymandering, between 15 and 20 seats in the House (out of 435 seats) above what would have otherwise been expected. A shift of 22 seats would change control from Republicans to Democrats.

For example, North Carolina is one of the states with extreme partisan gerrymandering of its Congressional districts. As a result, in 2012, Democrats got 51% of the votes for Congress statewide, but only won 4 of 13 seats in the House. In Pennsylvania, another state with extreme partisan gerrymandering, Democrats received just over half of the votes in 2012 but only 5 of 18 Congressional seats. [2] (This previous post has more information on the 2012 election results and on gerrymandering.)

Partisan gerrymandering has also dramatically affected thousands of seats in state legislatures. In Wisconsin, for example, in the 2012 election, Republicans received 49% of the statewide vote but got 60% of the seats in the Assembly of the state legislature. [3]

Extreme partisan gerrymandering has another, more insidious, effect. Nationwide, almost 100 of the 435 seats in the US House have been gerrymandered so only one of the two parties can win the seat. This means that the final election in November is meaningless for these seats. It also means that the voters of the party not in control of the district are effectively disenfranchised – their votes don’t matter (at least in terms of the election of their US Representative). Hence, tens of millions of voters effectively have no say in who is elected as their congressional representative.

In these congressional districts, gerrymandered to allow only one of the parties to win, the only election that matters is that party’s primary. Given the low voter participation in primary elections, a small number of voters, often ones with relatively extreme political views, determines who the US Representative will be. This is a significant contributing factor to the extreme partisanship and gridlock in Congress.

Extreme partisan gerrymandering insulates elected officials from all but a small handful of their constituents – those that vote for them in primary elections. Therefore, these congressional representatives do not need to worry about representing the interests of most of their constituents. When elected representatives redraw legislative districts after the Censuses and engage in gerrymandering, essentially the elected officials are picking their voters, rather than voters choosing their elected representatives.

This is clearly undermining democracy and the democratic principle of one person, one vote, i.e., that each voter has an equal voice in our democracy.

Partisan gerrymandering is accomplished by packing as many supporters of the opposition party into as few districts as possible. The opponents will win these seats overwhelmingly. Meanwhile, supporters of your party are spread more evenly across the other districts, so your party will comfortably win as many seats as possible. For example, in Pennsylvania in 2012, as the result of Republican gerrymandering, the Democrats won 5 congressional districts by an average margin of 76% to 24% (a 52 percentage point margin). The Republicans won 13 districts by an average of 59% to 41% (an 18 percentage point margin). [4] Clearly, if the Democratic voters had been spread out more evenly, the Democrats would have won more seats but by smaller margins. Overall, Democrats got about 350,000 votes and Republicans got about 250,000, but the Republicans won 13 of 18 seats. With fair districts, Democrats would have gotten 10 or 11 seats and Republicans 7 or 8 seats. So, extreme partisan gerrymandering produced a swing of 5 or 6 seats to the Republicans in Pennsylvania.

My next post will discuss what can be done to stop gerrymandering.

[1] Wang, S., & Remlinger, B., 9/25/17, “Slaying the partisan gerrymander,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/slaying-partisan-gerrymander)

[2] Li, M., 2/6/18, “What Pennsylvania’s landmark partisan gerrymandering ruling means,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/what-pennsylvania-landmark-partisan-gerrymandering-ruling-means)

[3] Fried, C., 7/10/17, “Gerrymandering is unfair and unjust,” The Boston Globe

[4] Ballotpedia, retrieved from the Internet on 6/4/18, “United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania, 2012” (https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_Pennsylvania,_2012)