Robert Kuttner on Sen. Maria Cantwell's approach to financial regulation: In the showdown over the regulation of potentially toxic securities like credit-default swaps, the savviest and toughest battler for effective legislation turns out to be not Barney Frank or Chris Dodd, who chair the key House and Senate financial committees. Surprisingly, the best informed and most relentless crusader is a back-bench senator from Washington state, Maria Cantwell. If you want to see how one determined junior legislator can make a difference, Cantwell is your woman. Cantwell, a big booster of Barack Obama, is determined to push his administration to deliver on fundamental reforms to the financial system -- and dismayed by what she's seen to date from Obama's staff. "If there are people at the Treasury and the White House who think that the way to get the economy going again is not to close these loopholes," she told me in an interview, "that's disgusting." KEEP READING ...
