Yesterday POLITICO published a piece about how Dick Durbin is supposedly having a tough year, based on the failure of the cramdown legislation and the fact that, in the brief period after Roland Burris was a U.S. senator and before the public knew about his involvement in Blagogate, Durbin was friendly with the other senator from Illinois. In a rare case of where I agree with press spin, I think Durbin flack Joe Shoemaker sort of pwns the article's authors:
Let me get this straight. The majority whip ushers through the economic recovery bill — the president's highest priority — without losing a single Democratic vote. He helps secure passage of a budget, ... won on the [Troubled Asset Relief Program] resolution of disapproval, and he helped push the omnibus through. That's not a ‘bumpy start' — that's a hell of a good first few months.
In fact, specifically on cramdown, Durbin was left hanging by the administration. In the article, quotes from people who opposed the legislation are offered as evidence that Durbin mismanaged the negotiations, but I'd encourage readers to check out my new post-mortem on the bankruptcy reform, which details the Obama administration's failure to push for the legislation:
While the public's hostility toward the financial world created a favorable political climate for cramdown legislation, the administration does not seem to have pushed hard on mortgage bankers to drop their opposition. The White House also appears to have neglected to aggressively lobby fence-sitting members of Congress. That may be, in part, because the administration requires the bankers' cooperation on other issues, like the actual loan-modification process or the Treasury's broader attempt to rehabilitate the financial sector.
"I wouldn't call it pressure or anything, but certainly the people in the administration have encouraged us to be at the table and work with the Senate, to work with the House," [Francis] Creighton [the Chief Lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers] said. "They've encouraged us to be at the table and work on this, and not to sort of say no."
Of course, the bankers eventually said no. Sources involved with the final Senate negotiations say the administration did not take an active role in the discussions between Durbin, moderate Democrats and several large banks, including Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. Those sources asked not to be identified due to the delicacy of the talks. While administration officials declined to discuss the specifics of their efforts to push the legislation forward, White House spokesperson Bill Burton told the Prospect that "the president did make his support perfectly and consistently clear."
Read the whole thing.
-- Tim Fernholz
