infoplease

Obama's Proposed Regulatory Overhaul: Long Overdue

And let's not forget Chris' involvement in Glass Steagall. I don't trust any of them in Washington to pass legislation that is good for the country. They play to what is good for them.

Dodd also played a crucial role in the 1999 passage of the deregulatory Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which dismantled key provisions of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, breaking down barriers among commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies. In fact, according to Ed Yingling, head of the American Bankers Association, Dodd was the bill's unsung hero. "It was about to die," says Yingling, "because [former Republican senator] Phil Gramm, on a side issue, was just hardballing it. There were seven or eight of us who were chief lobbyists for the industries. What we were saying was, 'We're running out of time. If we can get Chris Dodd in the room, we can work it out.'" They got Dodd, and Dodd got it done, but Dodd doesn't like to talk about it anymore. Not when he's trying to rebuild vital parts of the same regulatory framework he helped knock down. "I regret we didn't pay more attention to this at the time," he admits. "We're not going to go back and rewrite that. We want to be able to have those kinds of efficiencies in the system. But clearly the division between commerce and banking - that needs to be a bright line."