Jeb Hensarling is using his Texas base to plan the demise of the Dodd-Frank law.
The powerful House Financial Services chairman is hitting the airwaves and hosting top bank lobbyists in his Dallas district this week as he prepares for a major legislative push to scale back the sweeping regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. It's an effort that has been given new life with Donald Trump's surprising victory.
Since Congress left town for the holidays, Hensarling has appeared on NPR and Fox Business to pitch his policy vision, which is embodied by a 500-page bill he has dubbed the Financial CHOICE Act.
He has held meetings in Dallas with leaders of the American Bankers Association and Financial Services Roundtable as he retools the legislation for House votes next year. And he was scheduled to meet with the Independent Community Bankers of America Thursday morning.
"Over the break, we're going to be spending a lot of time working on some improvements and modifications in an attempt to perfect the bill," Hensarling said in an interview with POLITICO.
The prep work is critical now that Republicans control the White House. With the threat of an automatic veto gone once President Barack Obama leaves office, it's up to Hensarling to ensure that the guiding document for the House GOP's banking policies is ready for prime time.
President-elect Trump has signaled that he's ready to go along with Republican plans to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, which Hensarling's bill would attempt to gut in major ways.
The Financial Services Committee approved a draft of the bill along party lines in September, when it was for the most part a messaging exercise with little hope of becoming law. Republican control of Washington has changed that, and it remains to be seen whether Hensarling will make any changes to adapt the bill to the new political environment.
Hensarling met this week with bank trade groups that had mixed reviews of the bill upon its initial release.
At issue was a regulatory trade-off that would allow banks to escape regulations if they agreed to meet more stringent capital requirements intended to protect the economy against their failure. The American Bankers Association and the Financial Services Roundtable raised concerns earlier this year that not enough banks would be in a position to benefit from the exemptions offered by Hensarling's proposal.
This week, Hensarling spoke with leaders of the groups. He met Wednesday with ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols and Executive Vice President of Congressional Relations James Ballentine. He met Tuesday with senior executives from the Financial Services Roundtable.
In the interview last week, Hensarling said he planned to introduce the new version of the bill "sooner as opposed to later." He said it was important to get the perspective of new members joining the panel.
"It's the No. 1 priority we have on the committee," he said.