A Fighting Chance

For any event involving the president, there’s a point at which the doors are closed, security is locked in place, and that’s it, no one else gets in. But Senator Durbin, who had also been invited to the signing, promised he would get me there. The minute I finished testifying, I dashed out of the hearing room and sprinted down the hall with one of Durbin’s aides. We ran outside and jumped into a black SUV with the senator. Racing along one street and another, we wheeled into the Reagan Building, bailed out of the car and sprinted to the door just ahead of the final lockdown. What a way to start a party!

At the signing ceremony I was seated in the front row, tucked in next to the legendary former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Huge cheers greeted President Obama when he took the stage. Everyone was on their feet, clapping and shouting. The president had supported financial reform right from the start, and this was his triumph.

Woo-hoo! The American people had won a great victory. Too bad fireworks weren’t permitted inside the auditorium.

A week or so later, I got a package in the mail. Inside was a note from the president, and it was accompanied by a pen. It was one of the pens he had used to sign the consumer agency into law.

David’s Slingshot

The battle had lasted for more than a year, but this time David thwacked Goliath hard.

From the beginning, the odds had been stacked so completely against us that I doubt Las Vegas would have given anyone a betting line. The big banks were organized and committed. They had PR people, lawyers, lobbyists, researchers, and consultants galore. They presented a united front—virtually no public quarrels or dramatic defections. The financial services industry assembled the best lobbying force money could buy, and it was reported that they ultimately spent more than $500 million on lobbying and campaign contributions during their drive to kill the reform bill.

The fight over the consumer agency was a battle between the people and rich and powerful corporations. The big banks didn’t want this agency. They saw it as a direct threat, and their motivation for trying to kill it was simple: They wanted to run their businesses without a watchdog barking at them.

By the usual rules of Washington, the powerful banks should have beaten the people so easily and so thoroughly that the consumer agency would be nothing more than a tiny grease spot on the trouser cuff of a $1,000-an-hour lobbyist.

So how did the people win? There were individual heroes, like the lawmakers who had championed the idea when no one thought it had a prayer of becoming law—Congressmen Brad Miller and Bill Delahunt and Senators Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer. When it came time to turn the concept into actual legislation, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd got down in the trenches to twist arms and cut deals and find a way to keep the agency alive. There were also behind-the-scenes heroes, like Michael Barr and Eric Stein, who spent endless hours drafting, negotiating, and redrafting strong language. And there were many champions like Travis Plunkett at Consumer Federation of America and Ed Mierzwinski at PIRG, consumer advocates who have dedicated their lives to fighting for the American people.

But in the end, I think most of the credit for this win goes to the American people. Sometimes they were organized—through nonprofit groups and unions and coalitions. Sometimes they were a little disorganized, as single voices burst forth in funny videos and online blogs and old-fashioned letters to the editor. But organized or not, the people made themselves heard.

I also believe that the people who worked on the consumer side got smarter. When the moment to begin the fight arrived, people moved. There was no hesitation or hanging back. Instead, longtime advocates and first-time volunteers jumped in and fought like there would be no tomorrow. They settled on One Big Idea for protecting consumers. They organized early, and they made every nickel count. They crowd-sourced and tweeted and posted on Facebook. They harnessed volunteers, from high school kids to Hollywood stars. They didn’t allow their efforts to get too complicated, and they stayed clear on what they were fighting for. Most of all, even when the agency was reported dead and the big banks declared victory, nobody gave up.

And they harnessed the energy that swept the nation that year. The financial crisis had rocked this country to its core, and people were furious. They were hungry for a change that didn’t smack of cozy deals for insiders, a change that cleaned up at least one little corner of the world. It was a mad-as-hell moment, and that meant change was possible.

Our democracy has been beaten up pretty badly. The political influence enjoyed by big-bank CEOs and their high-priced lobbyists is shameful. When people talk to me about how broken Washington is, I really can’t argue with them: it’s a mess, and too often its priorities are all wrong. But I hope—I fervently hope—people won’t give up.

Because this time, when the people fought an against-all-odds battle, democracy worked. It was a little dented and scratched, but it worked.





5 | An Agency for the People