Lawmakers’ efforts to chip away at the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act have come almost exclusively from the GOP side of the aisle—until now. The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed H.R. 4096, a bipartisan bill, by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 395 to 3. The bill, known as the Investor Clarity and Bank Parity Act, amends Dodd-Frank’s Volcker Rule so that an investment adviser affiliated with a bank can share the same name or a similar name with a hedge fund or private equity fund.
The purpose of H.R. 4096 is to ensure that Main Street businesses and banks have access to affordable financing and growth capital. The bill received 229 yea votes from Republicans and 166 yea votes from Democrats. The only three who voted nay were Democrats. Attempts to roll back Dodd-Frank have been more fierce in the last two months. Earlier in April, the House Financial Services Committee passed two bills—one that sets a budget for the CFPB and one that repeals Dodd-Frank’s bailout fund for large, complex financial institutions.
A coalition consisting of more than 160 labor unions, civil rights groups, and other advocates—f including the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, and the NAACP—has written a letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray. The letter calls for the Bureau to take its proposed rule to ban arbitration clauses that prevent consumers from bringing class-action lawsuits even further by prohibiting businesses from using forced arbitration in individual cases.