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January 13, 2022 | Democracy Journal

Jeff Hauser Max Moran

Op-Ed Corporate Crackdown

What Biden’s Message Should Be

Americans were more divided than ever in 2021, but everyone in the country still agreed on one thing: The Democratic Party has a messaging problem.

“We’ve got a national branding problem that is probably deeper than a lot of people suspect,” Democratic pollster Brian Stryker, who is currently working with the centrist think tank Third Way to understand why Democrats lost the recent governors’ race in Virginia told The New York Times. “I’m not going to argue it’s working right now, but I need it to work when it matters,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee told The Washington Post in November of the Democrats’ efforts to sell their legislative victories. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) seemingly agrees, telling attendees at a recent fundraising dinner that “Democrats are terrible at messaging. It’s just a fact.”

January 12, 2022 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Eleanor Eagan

Newsletter

Ethics in GovernmentFinancial RegulationRevolving Door

Pelosi Turns a Political Slam Dunk to a Troubling Liability

With Omicron surging, Build Back Better sputtering, and the latest voting rights push facing long odds, it’s no secret that Democrats are in desperate need of a win to prove their worth. So what did Democratic leadership do when one such opportunity – enthusiastically championing a move to ban members of Congress from trading stocks – fortuitously fell into its lap? You guessed it…Speaker Nancy Pelosi mocked and immediately rejected it.

January 11, 2022

Fatou Ndiaye

Blog Post Climate and EnvironmentFinancial RegulationGovernment CapacityIndependent Agencies

Climate Finance Capacity Project: Securities and Exchange Commission

Climate change poses a serious threat to everything the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is meant to protect and oversee. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC)’s “Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. The Financial System ”report makes this abundantly clear. The report concludes that climate change may “exacerbate existing, non-climate related vulnerabilities in the financial system, with potentially serious consequences for market stability”. Furthermore, the physical and transitional risks of climate change will likely lead to systemic and sub-systemic financial shocks. These shocks would cause “unprecedented disruption in the proper functioning of financial markets and institutions” and further marginalize communities underserved by the financial system. To fulfill its mandate, of maintaining fair, orderly, and efficient markets, protecting investors, and facilitating capital formation, the SEC must proactively ensure there is enough personnel to monitor and enforce regulations that will keep markets stable and adaptable. 

January 11, 2022

Press Release Climate and EnvironmentGovernment CapacityIndependent Agencies

New Report Warns That Insufficient Capacity at The SEC Might Limit its Role In the Fight Against Climate Change

Today, the Revolving Door Project released its SEC Climate Capacity Report examining the detrimental impact of capacity shortfalls on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s climate work. This report is the second installment of its Climate Finance Capacity Project. The Climate Finance Capacity Project explores the power and responsibility that each of the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s member agencies has to address the climate crisis and consider how resource limitations threaten to limit their impact. 

January 10, 2022

Letter Ethics in GovernmentFederal Reserve

Letter Calls on Senators to Grill Powell on Fed Ethics Failures

In the fall of 2021, a series of trading scandals rocked the Federal Reserve and cast doubt on every aspect of its ethics program, from disclosure practices and vetting standards to enforcement mechanisms. The message to the public was clear: under chairman Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve’s sole executive officer and the official to whom the institution’s staff reports, ethical conduct was not a priority. After initially brushing off the seriousness of these revelations, Powell seemingly sought to change that impression by instituting new ethics standards and launching an Inspector General’s investigation.

January 05, 2022 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Eleanor Eagan

Newsletter

Congressional OversightDepartment of JusticeEthics in Government

The Stones that Paved the Way to 1/6

Tomorrow marks one year from when rioters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the 364 days since that horrific event some things have certainly changed: the presidency has successfully changed hands, almost 200 insurrectionists have plead guilty, and a handful of Trump’s associates have been held in contempt of Congress for their refusal to testify before the select committee. And yet, in other respects, progress has been woefully incomplete. Key officials from the Trump administration remain in place, the federal government continues to defend many of Trump’s seemingly indefensible legal positions, and Trump and his inner circle have not faced consequences for inciting the insurrection.

January 04, 2022

Hannah Story Brown

Blog Post Anti-MonopolyExecutive BranchGovernment CapacityIndependent AgenciesTrade Policy

Amidst a Record Supply Chain Crisis, What is the Federal Maritime Commission’s Capacity?

One tiny federal agency with 116 full-time employees and a $28.9 million dollar budget is in charge of regulating the global marine economy, which contributes $397 billion to the US GDP annually and accounts for 80 percent of goods shipped worldwide. That’s not just an apples and oranges discrepancy—that’s like an apple versus Apple. The budget for the military’s marching bands is fifteen times greater than the Federal Maritime Commission’s budget; the Marines alone have five times more musicians than the Commission has staff.

December 22, 2021 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Eleanor Eagan

Newsletter

Confirmations CrisisCongressional OversightDe-TrumpificationGovernment Capacity

New Year’s Resolutions for Official Washington

The jury’s still out on whether Build Back Better is really, truly dead. Some think that there’s still a deal to be made after Senator Joe Manchin unceremoniously blew up negotiations over the weekend. Others argue that, if Manchin isn’t satisfied with a bill that has already been thoroughly hacked and chiseled to conform to his demands, he won’t accept anything. But whichever camp you fall in, it’s clear that the landmark legislation is unlikely to remain the only topic in town next year. (Indeed, as important as the needs requiring BBB are, the executive branch is always also critical). As our political leaders prepare for the post-Build Back Better world, we ask that they consider making the following resolutions for the New Year.