Sen. Scott Brown, trying on his sincere face.
Elizabeth Warren's campaign for the U.S. Senate is having a interesting impact on her previous big fight, to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a means of trying make the playing field just a tiny bit tilted toward the 99 percent. How'd she achieve this? Just by being in the race against Republican Scott Brown, who has
said he'll buck the GOP leadership which has vowed to block any nominee to the agency unless it is essentially gutted, and supports Richard Cordray, President Obama's nominee to head up the new agency.
The decision is a break from Republican leaders, GOP candidates for president, and rank-and-file members, who have denounced both the structure of the bureau and the overarching Dodd-Frank regime of government regulations on Wall Street. Early in the summer, 44 Republicans vowed to filibuster the nomination of any director unless the new bureau is overhauled and Congress is granted more oversight. Last week, Nevada Senator Dean Heller added his name to the list.
Brown, who bucked his party in supporting the Dodd-Frank laws in 2010, was one of two Republicans who did not sign the letter.
“The senator supports the Cordray nomination and believes it deserves an up or down vote on the Senate floor,’’ spokesman John Donnelly said yesterday.
Not that it'll make any difference in the outcome, as there are enough Republicans to continue the filibuster. So it's not like Brown is really going to get in trouble with his leadership, seeing how he is primarily intent upon keeping this seat. If keeping this seat means Brown having to cede some ground to Elizabeth Warren, that's what will happen.
But it also gives Warren supporters an opportunity to call him out on his hypocrisy.
Kevin Franck, spokesman for the Massachusetts Dems, sends over the following statement. "This is nothing more than a meaningless and thinly veiled attempt by Scott Brown to hide his anti-consumer record from Massachusetts voters. Scott Brown never seems to understand that it's not his words that matter, it's his actions. It is refreshing, however, to see that Brown has finally seen the light on the virtues of an up-or-down-vote since he has developed a nasty habit of voting to filibuster Democratic plans to create jobs."
After all, he's still Wall Street's favorite senator.