Lucas,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren just made national headlines by calling on President
Obama to replace Mary Jo White as chair of the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC).
In a scathing recent letter, Sen. Warren detailed 19 times the SEC has failed to enact commonsense banking rules included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. The final straw for Sen. Warren was Chair White delaying and undermining the administration’s efforts to protect investors by requiring corporations to disclose their political spending. Sen. Warren is the first elected official to join the independent watchdog organization the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) in boldly calling on President Obama to replace White as the nation’s top Wall Street cop.
As long as Mary Jo White is chair of the SEC, Americans will never truly be safe from Wall Street deceit and lawbreaking. From her time as a U.S. Attorney giving financial criminals a free pass, to her lucrative stint as a private corporate defense attorney, White’s entire career represents the worst of the revolving door between Wall Street and government. Sen. Warren is taking a risk to call for White’s ouster, so it is more important than ever to show how many people stand behind her.
Stand with Sen. Warren: Sign the petition from CREDO and Daily Kos telling President Obama Mary Jo White must go.
It is not the first time Sen. Warren has taken a bold stand. A few months ago, she attacked a pattern of failure and misleading statements by White. Days after, the independent watchdog POGO made a convincing case that President Obama should demote White, noting that she has:
- Backed “get out of jail free” cards for criminal banks, repeatedly voting to give big banks waivers allowing them to keep special perks despite breaking the law. As the fifth and tie-breaking vote on many issues, White regularly sides with Wall Street, not Main Street.
- Overseen a paralyzed, Wall Street-friendly SEC. Reports describe White’s SEC as plagued “by discord and paralysis.” Rules have taken years to finalize, and her frequent need to recuse herself due to her background as a private defense attorney – and her husband’s current job as a corporate lawyer – has empowered Republicans to demand lighter punishments for corporate lawbreakers.
- Hired revolving door Goldman Sachs’ managing director as her chief of staff. After overlooking Wall Street fraud as the Director of Investment at the SEC in the run-up to the financial crash, Andrew Donohue was later richly rewarded as managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he oversaw the firm’s legal matters. In a disgusting example of the revolving door, he then returned to the SEC in 2015 in the highly influential position of chief of staff to White.
On top of it all, the SEC has settled the majority of its cases without
requiring companies to admit guilt, breaking a key promise Mary Jo White
made in her confirmation hearing.
We’ve given Mary Jo White enough time to prove her detractors wrong.
Her time at the SEC should now come to an end.
Stand with Sen. Warren: Tell President Obama Mary Jo White must go.
President Obama has the power to name a new chair of the commission. He could
promote Kara Stein, “Elizabeth Warren’s ally on the inside.”
Chair White would then become a regular commissioner – or do the
right thing and resign. The Securities and Exchange Commission, with its
wide-ranging responsibilities for overseeing private equity, hedge funds,
Wall Street banks, and big corporations, is simply too important an institution
to leave in her charge.
In the past, when Sen. Warren dared to criticize White, bank lobbyists
took to the press to
declare that Warren had finally gone too far. We need to show that we stand behind
her as she takes on the fights that truly matter.
Stand with Sen. Warren: Tell President Obama Mary Jo White must go.
Thank you for speaking out,
Murshed Zaheed, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets
Paid for by CREDO