By Sean Coit
One piece of
pending legislation could define U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski's 26 years in
Congress.
That, at
least, is how the congressman sees it.
Sipping
coffee in his office after returning from the House floor last week, Kanjorski
reflected during an interview about his party's high-profile efforts to
reform Wall Street regulations, an effort he has played a major role in, and
its importance to his career.
"This
legislation is without a doubt the most significant thing I've worked on in
Congress," he said.
House and
Senate leaders began meeting last week to bridge the gap between their
respective regulatory bills, and Kanjorski is positioned to play an important
role at the negotiating table. As one of just 16 House conferees (the Senate
has 12) and a well-versed veteran of financial legislation, the Scranton-area
lawmaker has already crafted four of the eight pieces of the current House
version.
But early indications
point to an extended negotiation process.
With
European markets faltering and the G-20 summit in Toronto approaching, an early
July deadline has been set before President Obama heads to Canada to meet with
the leaders of the globe's largest economies. Kanjorski, though, isn't pressed
on the deadline.
"It's not
that important, but it makes practical sense for Toronto," Kanjorski said.
"It would be best if we resolved reform before the G-20 meeting."
Most
important is the standard that the potentially sweeping financial legislation
sets for global markets, said the congressman.
"The
standards we set will set the course
worldwide," Kanjorski said. "It will be a new set of rules and
regulations for 50 to 100 years, and it will allow this to be the American
Century."
But his
optimism isn't universal.
Republicans,
mostly united in opposition to the bill, have said it creates a cumbersome
bureaucracy while ensuring future bailouts. The federal government shouldn't
have bailed out the financial system in 2008, many of them say, and it
shouldn't do so in the future.
That
rhetoric is precisely what Kanjorski wants to address. Kanjorski's well known
"Too Big to Fail" amendment is designed to prevent bailouts by empowering
regulators to pre-emptively counsel, or even dismantle financial companies that
are deemed so interconnected with financial industry that their failure could threaten
the economy's overall stability.
Rather than
providing a safety net for those financial companies whose stability directly
impacts the nation's economic health, the Kanjorski amendment would reform
regulations currently in place, ensuring that officials could direct or even
take apart financial firms that pose systemic risk to financial markets before
they approach collapse. The amendment, then, would allow all companies to fail
in hopes of avoiding future bailouts.
Selling the
merits of the legislation, however, will be difficult in a political climate
that's highly skeptical of government intervention.
For
starters, the word "bailout" poses problems, according to Kanjorski. "Lots of
people don't understand the word, but they know they hate it."
At the root
of the issue lies a fear among Republicans, Democrats, and voters alike of
another financial meltdown, something that party leaders on each side have
distinctly different solutions for. But after being instrumental in the
administration's response to the recession and market collapse, which
he described as "a near-death experience," Kanjorski believes that
he is a more effective legislator.
"Going
through the crash and coming up with the right judgments was good in a way," he
said. "I was able to clearly define what positions I would take in a tough
situation, win or lose."
Those tough
positions were vital to the country's survival, he said.
"If we
hadn't succeeded, I think we would've lost the Republic," he said. "We
would've ended our lives living like it was the 16th Century."
The current
bill, which has been propped up by somewhat tenuous support, particularly from
a mere handful of Senate Republicans who support it, faces pressure from both
sides, as liberal Democratic leaders including Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)
promise not to allow a weakened bill to pass.
And, as
"bailout" and "Wall Street" quickly become politically poisonous terms for
legislators, the risks involved with these votes are not lost on Kanjorski, who
will face a difficult road to re-election in the fall.
Kanjorski's
electoral battles became particularly tough in 2008, when many observers
considered Kanjorski's career all but over. Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta,
a well-known Republican in the district, appeared poised to win in his second
run for the seat two years ago, but the longtime congressman survived.
Obama voters
in the landmark 2008 presidential election were largely considered to be the
force that put Kanjorski over the top, a luxury he will not have as he faces
Barletta once again in the fall. Earlier this year, Kanjorski survived a
primary test against Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O'Brien, who fell
15-points short of the longtime incumbent.
Kanjorski,
though, remains undeterred.
"This is an
issue and a time that tests why you're in Congress," he said. "If this
costs me my seat, so be it. I came to do the best I could."
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