WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) commended Hillary Clinton on Monday for proposing stronger regulations on Wall Street banks.
Clinton noted in a New York Times op-ed published earlier that day that Republicans "are working to attach damaging deregulation riders to the must-pass spending bill," as well as "trying to undo constraints on risk at some of the largest and most complex financial institutions."
The Democratic presidential front-runner also outlined how she would "fight for tough new rules, stronger enforcement and more accountability that go well beyond" Dodd-Frank, the financial reform bill passed in 2010 that the GOP has tried to roll back ever since.
This earned praise from Warren, who helped design and set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the Dodd-Frank bill called for its creation. Republicans have repeatedly tried to gut the agency.
In the op-ed, Clinton detailed Wall Street reform proposals including, among other measures, imposing a new risk fee on some of the biggest banks and strengthening the Volcker Rule "by closing the loopholes that allow banks to make speculative gambles with taxpayer-backed deposits." She also wrote that she would "fight to reinstate the rules governing risky credit swaps and derivatives at taxpayer-backed banks." Those rules were repealed, over objections from progressives like Warren, during last year’s budget negotiations.
One Warren-backed proposal that was conspicuously absent from Clinton's op-ed is the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, legislation that forced banks to separate their commercial and investment operations. The law was repealed in 1999 under President Bill Clinton.
Clinton wrote in the Times that she would "ensure that the federal government has -- and is prepared to use -- the authority and tools necessary to reorganize, downsize and ultimately break up any financial institution that is too large and risky to be managed effectively" because "no bank or financial firm should be too big to manage."
However, she has resisted calling for Glass-Steagall's reinstatement -- as her opponents for the Democratic nomination have -- saying the legislation wouldn't have prevented the 2008 financial crisis and doesn't cover the activities of hedge funds, investment banks and other non-bank institutions.
Warren has indicated that she will make an endorsement in the Democratic primary, but has yet to do so. She has often found common ground with Clinton's main rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on financial reform, and was the only female Democratic senator to not appear at a fundraiser for Clinton last week.
