Why Rep. Marcy Kaptur Voted “No!” On Financial “Reform”

During the bank bailout fight of 2008, Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) became a national folk hero as millions of Americans clicked on YouTube videos of her blasting the bankers, who had come to Congress, looking for handouts. “The crimes of Wall Street will make Watergate look like penny-ante thieves,” she declared, according to The Nation.

The Congresswoman urged homeowners, who were threatened with foreclosure, to refuse to leave their homes until the banks could “produce the note” – something they could not do. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Kaptur told constituents. “Therefore, stay in your property. Get proper legal representation...If Wall Street cannot produce the deed nor the mortgage audit trail...you should stay in your home. It is your castle. It’s more than a piece of property.”

Kaptur appeared in Michael Moore’s film Capitalism: A Love Story. Referring to the bailout, Moore asked “Do you think it’s too harsh to call what has happened here a coup d’état? A financial coup d’état?” Kaptur responded “I think that’s what’s happened – a financial coup d’état.”

In the House, Kaptur introduced real reform legislation, the Return to Product Banking Act, which would “(amend) the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA) to prohibit an insured depository institution from being an affiliate of any broker or dealer, investment adviser, investment company, or any other person or entity engaged principally in the issue, flotation, underwriting, public sale, or distribution of stocks, bonds, debentures, notes, or other securities.”

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173) passed the House on a 237 to 192 vote, with most Dems backing the measure that President Obama and House and Senate leaders are pitching as a major reform measure and most GOPers opposing it.

But Kaptur cast a loud and unapologetic “No!” vote.

Kaptur told the House that the measure to “support the very same big banks (that caused the crisis) and not the American people and the communities in which we live, in the Main Street that all of us are sworn to represent.”

One of her specific complaints was that “the bill allows financial power to create wealth – the bankers’ awesome power – to be closely held in a few Wall Street and Charlotte-based megabanks. The bill does not address the business model of credit rating agencies or how interwoven these non-governmental agencies are with the institutions they rate. The bill does not require that all derivatives be traded through transparent exchanges. The bill does not adequately support both agencies dedicated to finding and fighting fraud in our financial system, and it really doesn’t do anything to address the continuing mortgage foreclosure hemorrhage – the crisis going on across our country.”

Basically, unlike most members of the House – Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives – Marcy Kaptur is serious about reform.

Watch Kaptur blast the Wall Street criminals in the videos above.