The White House is intervening at the last minute to come to the defense of multinational corporations in the unfolding conference committee negotiations over Wall Street reform.
A measure that had been generally agreed to by both the House and Senate, which would have affirmed the SEC's authority to allow investors to have proxy access to the corporate decision-making process, was stripped by the Senate in conference committee votes on Wednesday and Thursday. Five sources with knowledge of the situation said the White House pushed for the measure to be stripped at the behest of the Business Roundtable. The sources -- congressional aides as well as outside advocates -- requested anonymity for fear of White House reprisal. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. [UPDATE: A White House aide tells HuffPost that Jarrett has not contacted anyone on the Hill regarding the proxy issue.]
The White House move pits the administration against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who told Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to stand strong against the effort.
"I met with the Speaker today and she said, 'Don't back down. I'll back you up,'" Frank, the lead House conferee, told HuffPost. "Maxine Waters is very upset, as are CalPERS and others."
Advocates said that the corporations fought the issue primarily over executive compensation concerns. Given proxy access, investors could rein in executive salaries. The Business Roundtable is a lobby of corporate CEOs.
Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser and Obama confidante, is the administration liaison to the Business Roundtable. Three sources said that Jarrett was behind the effort to strip the provision; the other two were unsure.
DEM ON DEM VIOLENCE OVER SWIPE FEES - Peter Welch, in a letter to colleagues, does a good ol' fashioned Fisking of an earlier letter from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, opposing the Durbin-Welch swipe fee amendment that would reduce fees merchants pay on credit cards. The swipe fee fight pits merchants against Wall Street, but the bankers are sending their more popular little cousins to do their lobbying. "They've managed, essentially, to enlist our credit unions and our small banks, both of whom I support, to do their bidding. They're laying low," Welch tells HuffPost Hill. "And yet the credit unions have been exempted under this legislation, except for three in the whole country, are making the case for the big bank." Welch found multiple flat-out errors in the Wasserman Schultz letter. With the record corrected, several Democrats have taken the rather unusual action of removing their names from DWS's original missive. "We have talked to several offices who have been very concerned that they were given something with clear inaccuracies in it, and as a result were getting off the letter," lobbyist Doug Kantor, who represents the merchants, told HuffPost Hill. "It's remarkable how you can walk through just about any fact that's in the letter and it's demonstrably wrong." Here's one of the better ones:Wasserman Schultz: "In the words of Ron Robinson, the convenience store owner who testified at a 2008 House Judiciary Committee hearing, "There isn't a businessman that does not intend to keep the margin.""