{"id":378395,"date":"2010-03-02T01:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T06:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1398"},"modified":"2010-03-02T17:08:25","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T22:08:25","slug":"chris-dodd-compromises-harold-ford-calls-it-quits-and-more-in-capital-eye-opener-march-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/378395","title":{"rendered":"Chris Dodd Compromises, Harold Ford Calls it Quits and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"chrisdoddheader.jpg\"<\/a>Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:<\/p>\n

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COMPROMISE ON HORIZON FOR DODD, FINANCIAL BILL?<\/b> U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd<\/a> (D-Conn.) spent months railing against the Federal Reserve for what he considered its failure to protect consumers from abusive financial institutions.<\/div>\n
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Dodd, chairman<\/a> of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee<\/a> and who isn’t seeking<\/a> re-election, now appears primed<\/a> to compromise on his standing desire to create<\/a> an independent “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” designed to protect consumer interests.<\/div>\n
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Potentially in the offing: A bipartisan bill, crafted in part with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), that the Washington Post<\/i>‘s Binyamin Appelbaum and David Cho report would “place a presidential appointee inside the Fed with an independent budget and a mandate to write rules protecting consumers. Those rules, however, would be enforced by existing banking regulators.”<\/div>\n
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Dodd, with $1.33 million, ranks fifth among all senators<\/a> during the past two decades in terms of campaign money received from people and political action committees associated with commercial banks — only competitive presidential candidates Barack Obama<\/a>, John Kerry<\/a>, John McCain<\/a> and Hillary Clinton<\/a> have received more.<\/div>\n
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Using the same criteria, Dodd ranks highly among his Senate colleagues in terms of campaign donations from other, related industries: sixth for securities and investments<\/a> ($6.22 million), third for finance and credit card companies ($442,080) and second for savings and loan interests<\/a> ($204,670) and credit unions<\/a> ($64,500).<\/div>\n
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Read our recent coverage of Dodd’s role in national financial reform here<\/a>. And for full coverage of the money-in-politics angles of financial reform, read our recent Capital Eye<\/a><\/i> series, “Crossing Wall Street<\/a>.”<\/div>\n
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\"Harold_Ford,_Congressional_photo_portrait.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

HAROLD FORD JR. HANGS UP ON SENATE RUN:<\/b> In a New York Times<\/a><\/i> op-ed piece<\/a> Monday, former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr.<\/a> (D-Tenn.) announced an end to his dalliance with a U.S. Senate bid — in New York state — after losing a close Senate race four years ago<\/a> in Tennessee to Corker, a Republican.<\/div>\n
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In the Empire State, Ford would have competed in a primary against a Democrat he once helped<\/a> bankroll, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand<\/a>. She’s only where she’s at thanks to an appointment by the recently scandalized<\/a> New York-Gov.-Eliot-Spitzer<\/a>-sex-brouhaha-resignation-fill-in David Paterson after first lady-turned-Sen. Hillary Clinton, who moved to New York in 2000 after never before living there, herself ran for president, lost and resigned<\/a> to became secretary of state to Barack Obama, who also resigned<\/a> his Senate seat after defeating Clinton to win the presidency — and then watching as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich attempted to sell his former Senate seat to the highest bidder, face impeachment, be removed from office, get indicted in federal court and land on “Celebrity Apprentice” with Donald Trump to, ostensibly, fight over whose bouffant is poofier<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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Whew.<\/div>\n
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Writes Ford: “The cruel twist, of course, is that the party bosses who tried to intimidate me so that I wouldn’t even think about running against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand … are the same people responsible for putting Democratic control of the Senate at risk.”<\/div>\n
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Had Ford run against Gillibrand, he would have likely done so with strong backing from financial institutions, labor unions and law firms, all his historical backers<\/a>. During his years in the House that led to his 2006 Senate bid, Ford raised more than $19.2 million — an impressive sum by any account.<\/div>\n
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Would Ford rule out running at some point in the future? That’s unclear. “I’m a Democrat,” he said in his op-ed article. “But I am an independent Democrat.” <\/div>\n
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\"pharmchart.3.2.10.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A NEW OPENSECRETS.ORG LOBBYING TOOL:<\/b> If you’re a frequent user of our lobbying database<\/a>, you may have noticed a subtle change with great utility. Within our industry profiles, users may sort lobbying clients both by name and the amount the clients spent on federal lobbying. This is particularly useful when all you need is a quick, at-a-glance look at who the top players are within a given industry. Click here<\/a> to experiment with, for example, our lobbying profile of the pharmaceutical and health products industry.<\/p>\n
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Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics: COMPROMISE ON HORIZON FOR DODD, FINANCIAL BILL? U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) spent months railing against the Federal Reserve for what he considered its failure to protect consumers from abusive financial institutions. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}