What really happened with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999

[Lasher]

The Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act of 1999 was introduced in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-TX) as S. 900 and in the House of Representatives by James Leach (R-IA) as H.R. 10. S. 900 was passed along party lines 54-44 in the Senate by Roll Call Vote 105 on by May 6, 1999. H.R. 10 passed by a 343-86 bipartisan vote in the House 343-86 on July 1, 1999 by Roll Call Vote 276.

The bill was returned from conference for final votes in both Houses as S. 900. It passed 90-8 in the Senate on November 4, 1999 by Roll Call Vote 354 and passed 362-57 on the same day in the House by Roll Call Vote 570.

The Act had bipartisan support in the House from the beginning, but initially passed in the Senate virtually by a party line vote. What happened between May 6, 1999 and November 4, 1999 to convince Senate Democrats to support the bill? You might suppose that the final vote was just in regard to the changes that the Conference Committee had made and not on the overall substance of the legislation, but that argument doesn’t hold water.

The truth is, Senate Democrats supported the bill after Republicans agreed to strengthen provisions of the Community Reinvestment Act and address certain privacy concerns. This is why the bill was veto proof when it went to Clinton. But don’t be too quick to give Clinton a pass on this, since it’s likely that he would have signed the bill anyway. He and Congressional Democrats seemed interested in only these two issues, and were apparently unconcerned about repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.

Republicans Propose a Deal on Financial Services - New York Times - October 13, 1999

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 notwithstanding, Phil Gramm deserves blame because it is primarily he who introduced and sponsored the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. But nearly all members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, were complicit when the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 met its demise. The same is true of Bill Clinton and his administration.

[screembloodymurder]

1. K&R

Everybody is guilty. They're all crooks.

[Lasher]

2. Well, Republicans more so but Democrats went along with Gramm on this.

There's some confusion about just how this went down, so I thought I would share conclusions of some research.

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 is a different story. It blessed us with the Enron Loophole, but even more importantly it deregulated credit default swaps. This legislation had been considered dead that year, but Phil Gramm slipped it into an omnibus spending bill in December 2000.