To: 29 House Democrats who voted "yes" on HR 37
Sign the petition: Shame on Democrats that voted to gut Wall Street reform
Working class Americans across the country are hurting. I am disgusted that at a time when we need more and better jobs for working people, you would vote to deregulate Wall Street—not once, but twice.
HR 37—the so-called “Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act”—is a Wall Street handout and you should be ashamed of voting for it. I will remember your vote in 2016.
Why is this important?
On their second day in session, the U.S. House voted on a bill designed to weaken the most important protections of Dodd-Frank. To add insult to injury, 35 Democrats voted with the Republican majority.
A week later, after thousands of constituents expressed their displeasure, the House voted again on HR 37. Some of the Democrats got the message and switched their votes, but 29 House Democrats still voted for the bill.
The 29 House Democrats were: Brad Ashford (NE-02), Ami Bera (CA-07), Don Beyer (VA-08), Sanford Bishop (GA-02), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Cheri Bustos (IL-17), John Carney (DE-AL), Gerry Connolly (VA-11), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), John Delaney (MD-06), Bill Foster (IL-11), Gwen Graham (FL-02), Brian Higgins (NY-26), Jim Himes (CT-04), Derek Kilmer (WA-06), Ron Kind (WI-03), Rick Larsen (WA-02), Dan Lipinski (IL-03), Sean Maloney (NY-18), Patrick Murphy (FL-18), Scott Peters (CA-52), Jared Polis (CO-02), Mike Quigley (IL-05), Raul Ruiz (CA-36), Kurt Schrader (OR-05), David Scott (GA-13), Terri Sewell (AL-07), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09) and Albio Sires (NJ-08).
Dodd-Frank was passed in an attempt to prevent another 2008 financial crisis by lowering risk in various parts of the U.S. financial system. Since its passage, Republicans and Democrats in league with Wall St. have done their best to eliminate its most important protections—and leave the U.S. vulnerable to another economic crisis.
Votes like this are calculated moves on the part of centrist Democrats to please donors and distance themselves from the Democratic Party. This isn’t the first offense for many of these bad actors and we’ll likely see more votes like this over the next two years.
Every time a Democrat abandons the Party to shill for corporations at the expense of their constituents, we must let them know we are watching and won’t forget when it comes time for re-election.