InfoBytes Blog
House Democrats Seek Full Review of Financial CHOICE Act by Appropriate Committees; Investor Group Claims Act Will Undercut Shareholder Rights
As previously covered in InfoBytes, on May 4 the House Financial Services Committee approved the revised Financial CHOICE Act of 2017, H.R. 10, in a party-line vote, 34-26. Earlier this month the Ranking Members of two House committees sent letters to their respective Chairmen, urging their committees to not waive their jurisdiction over H.R. 10 and allow their respective committees to debate and vote on the legislation given its wide ranging effects on the U.S. economy. Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-Va.) of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce stated in his letter that Democrats on the Education and the Workforce Committee “have expressed great concern over the attempts to weaken oversight and enforcement power of the [CFPB] and the important role it plays regarding the integrity of student loan finance services.” Ranking Member John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) of the House Committee on the Judiciary urged the Chairman in his letter that “[i]t is particularly critical that our Committee examine and vote on this legislation given numerous provisions squarely within our Rule X jurisdiction that will prevent government agencies from protecting the rights of consumers and hold the financial marketplace more accountable.” As reported previously in InfoBytes, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) also called for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to assert jurisdiction over H.R. 10.
Additionally, on May 17, an advocacy group of institutional investors called upon the House of Representatives to oppose H.R. 10, saying the bill will undercut shareholder rights. The Council of Institutional Investors (CII) submitted a letter to all members of the House, urging them to oppose the bill. It was signed by CII and 53 institutional investors that collectively hold more than $4 trillion in assets, including representatives from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association, and New York State Teachers’ Retirement System. The letter said the bill would rollback curbs on “abusive” executive pay practices, restrict shareholder rights in board elections, and raise the cost of proxy advisers. The letter also cautioned that the bill would impede the SEC’s oversight of financial markets by requiring “excessive cost-benefit analysis” and including “unwise limits on enforcement.”