Maxine Waters lobbying for top Financial Services slot

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Politico

With Monday’s retirement announcement by Rep. Barney Frank, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats face a tough choice: Can they make Rep. Maxine Waters the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee despite her ongoing ethics problems?

Waters, a California Democrat first elected in 1990, won’t give them any easy out. As soon as Frank made his retirement official, Waters began calling Pelosi and other Democrats on Financial Services to tell them she intended to seeking the top Democratic post on the panel in the next Congress, according to Democratic insiders.

But Waters faces serious problems on the ethics front. She was charged by the Ethics Committee in 2010 with three ethics violations related, at least in part, to her role on Financial Services. Now she’s looking to become the top Democrat overseeing Wall Street and the banking industry — and the heir apparent to the committee’s chairmanship if Democrats ever win control of the House.

In Sept. 2008, Waters called then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to set up meeting between top Treasury Department officials and the officers of OneUnited Bank, a minority owned bank. Waters’ husband had been a member of the bank’s board of directors and still owned roughly $350,000 in stock. OneUnited was seeking federal help due to its heavy investment in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both of which had been placed in conservatorship due to the collapse of the U.S. housing market.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69230.html

---

[Angry Dragon]

1. But congressional insider-trading is okay, telling lies on the House

floor is okay, Issa running his companies out of the same building as his District office, adulterers and whore renters,
having a do nothing congress is all okay??

[Psephos]

2. None of those things are remotely ok. But Waters has disqualified herself, regardless.

We need non-ethically challenged Dems in the big positions. For the sake of the party and the sake of the country.

[closeupready]

3. "non-ethically challenged Dems" - LOL; we can't do that, we'd have nobody left

if we kept to that standard.

[banned from Kos]

4. She won't get it. She is unfit and ethics challenged. n/t

[KamaAina]

5. Not to mention progressive

:eyes:

[banned from Kos]

7. No one was more progressive than Barney Frank (who I support 100%)

Its a matter of competence and ethics.

[Skidmore]

13. Being progressive doesn't necessarily mean

you are pure as the driven snow when it comes to ethics.

[KamaAina]

6. Leave it to Politico

to shout "ethics" from the rooftops, as long as it applies to a Dem. :eyes:

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. Politico is hardly the only news source mentioning her ethics woes:

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/banking-financial-institutions/195645-maxine-waters-in-line-to-take-over-from-frank-on-financial-services

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/maxine-waters-more-polarizing-than-frank-2011-11-28?link=MW_latest_news

http://www.scpr.org/news/2011/11/28/30089/maxine-waters-line-top-democratic-job-powerful-hou/

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/11/28/waters-in-line-to-replace-retiring-frank-on-finance-commitee

[closeupready]

11. And you support Arne Duncan. Yin-yang.

:hi:

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. I support President Obama and his education policies

[closeupready]

14. Half-empty, half-full.

:hi:

[closeupready]

8. Well she's got my vote. K&R

She's never been scared to speak truth to power.

[Huey P. Long]

9. She does not bow before the corporate overlords, therefore she will be 'Sherroded'.