Taking It To K Street

It's a wet, rainy day in Washington D.C. Enough to soak anyone who stands outside long enough. But it wasn't enough to put out the fiery anger of hundreds of activists who took to the streets of the capitol today, to deliver a message to Wall Street's K Street lobbyists: Stop standing in the way of financial reform, and start taking responsibility for your failure.

The "Main Street lobbyists," as AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Schuler dubbed them, crowded Franklin Square in numbers greater than the Wall Street lobbyists who are the focus of the new Campaign for America's Future report "Big Bank Takover: How Too-Big-Too-Fail's Army of Lobbyists Has Captured Washington." The report's findings include:

• 243 lobbyists for six big banks and their trade associations used to work in the federal government — 202 in Congress, the rest in the White House, Treasury, or at a relevant federal government agency. That’s equivalent to 40 revolving-door lobbyists per bank.
Including 33 chiefs of staff, 54 staffers to the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee (or a current member of that committee) and 28 legislative directors, many of whom were key architects of financial deregulatory legislation during their time as congressional staffers, including the Financial Services Modernization (Gramm-Leach-Bliley) Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
• The six big banks and their trade associations have spent close to $600 million since the first major federal bailout of Bear Stearns in March 2008 on lobbying, trade association activity and political contributions.

But as the numbers of Wall Street lobbyists have increased, so has the number of Americans incensed by they accountability-free Wall Street Casino, the bankers whose bad bets we cover, the lobbyists they buy with their winnings, and members of Congress who continue to enable them. Today's protest is part of the growing wave of American's anger at an out-of-control financial sector, and politicians who lack the will to bring Wall Street to heel in the midst of a financial crisis that continues to cost Americans the livelihoods and homes, and threatens our children's future.

Before today's rally and march, more than 700 activists took their message and their demands to the doorstep of Bank of America general counsel Gregory Baer, whose response to the protest summarizes Wall Street's response to Americans' anger and demands for accountability.

Baer himself apparently tried to blend in with the crowd until a neighbor outed him. The mob booed loudly as he walked into his house. "I don't have time for you," he said, according to Trenda Kennedy of Springfield, Ill. who used a bullhorn to tell the crowd about her trouble getting a mortgage modification from Baer's bank.

Kennedy told HuffPost she'd been making reduced monthly payments thanks to a trial modification via the Home Affordable Modification Program. She said that when the bank turned her down for a permanent mod, she was told she still owed all the money she'd been paying during the trial. She said she's been notified of several sheriff's sale dates but has somehow managed to keep her home.

"Every time I'm inches away from losing my house, by some miracle it's been pushed off," said Kennedy, who is a member of Illinois People's Action.

The protest at Baer's home is reminiscent of the significantly smaller, but far more widely reported protests at the homes of AIG executives, after reports of AIG bonuses and lavish retreats sparked a bus tour/protest with stops at some AIG employee homes.

A year ago, it took one bus to carry 50 activists to demonstrate outside AIG headquarters. At another AID protest, last year 40 protesters were outnumbered 2-1 by reporters.

Typifying the preoccupation with AIG payouts, a busload of activists — outnumbered 2-to-1 by reporters and photographers — protested outside the homes of AIG executives in Connecticut Saturday.

About 40 protesters parked at a cul-de-sac Saturday afternoon and walked to the Fairfield home of Douglas Poling. They were met on the curb by two security guards, and one activist read a letter detailing the financial struggles that many Connecticut residents have faced. The group then left the note in Poling's mailbox.

Polling already agreed to forfeit his bonus, but the protesters want AIG executives to do more to help working families.

Not so today, on K Street, where protesters outnumbered the media by far more than 2-1, and outnumbered tea party representatives by hundreds to none. Typifying the preoccupation with Tea Party activists and their anger over health care reform, it remains to be seen whether these most recent protests against Wall Street's K Street lobbying arm will get the amount kind of press as far smaller protests on the right. But it's hard to deny or ignore what seems to be a growing trend.

And it's not just today's protest either. The cumulative effect of Wall Street corruption and cronyism, coupled with decades of conservative failure is making Wall Street "politically radioactive."

The tide has dramatically turned in favor of financial reform. As the Dodd bill has worked its way through the Senate, many Republicans joined Democrats to approve strengthening amendments that were politically unthinkable just a few weeks ago. Several more will be considered this week, prior to final passage.

This fight is not over, either short term or long term. There are several weakening amendments as well as more toughening amendments still to come next week. The financial lobby is fiercely fighting derivatives reform, and wants to weaken the right of states to go beyond federal regulatory minimums. Nor will the cleanup be complete with this bill.

But for the first time since the meltdown began, drastic reform has serious momentum. And Republicans are usefully on the defensive, embarrassed to vote with Wall Street. The long sought grail of bipartisanship is finally with us -- and it is an emerging bipartisan consensus to cleanse the evils of high finance.

It's not that the Republicans and corporate wing of the Democratic Party have come to Jesus -- only that Wall Street has become an albatross to the right. When Republican Senator Bob Bennett of Utah came in third at the party nominating convention last week, losing his right for a place on the primary ballot (and his three-term seat) critics held his vote for the TARP bailout against him

It's that more and more Americans are waking up — and waking their representatives up — to the nightmare Wall Street made of the economy, and the results are beginning to show in financial reform.

The Wall Street reform bill is taking that rarest of paths through the Senate — actually gaining tougher provisions against the industry as it proceeds, not being watered down to win votes as health care reform was.

And that’s put Republicans in a difficult spot. They like the bill less with each passing day but know they risk looking like they’re siding with Wall Street if they vote no.

...Democrats know public opinion is on their side and keep pressing their advantage. The latest example came Thursday, when the Senate voted, 64-33, to pass an amendment by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that would allow the government to oversee debit card transaction fees.

Consumer advocates loved it. The industry hated it, because the small fees on millions of card swipes add up to big revenue for ailing banks.

“It’s getting worse,” one Wall Street official said. “And it was made much worse by the Durbin vote.”

That means Wall Street may finally have to wake to reality "it's been getting worse" for millions of Americans even as bailout and bonus checks are printed, signed and deposited. And it will be "made much worse" if Wall Street continues it's lobbying efforts against reform, and continues to say "I don't have any time for you," as more and more Americans literally show up on Wall Street's doorstep declaring that it's time for real change.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future