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Liberals Want Evan Bayh Barred From Banking Committee

Evan Bayh / AP
October 13, 2016

A group of concerned liberals are working to make sure that Democrat Evan Bayh is barred from returning to a position of power in the Senate Banking Committee if he gets elected to the U.S. Senate this November.

Groups such as a MoveOn.org wrote in a letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) that "any attempt to have Evan Bayh installed as chair ... must be opposed."

The Washington Post reports:

A coalition of progressive groups wants to make absolutely, 100-percent sure that Evan Bayh won’t take over the Senate Banking Committee if he’s elected in November.

Why? Bayh, being friendly to banks, is no friend of theirs.

"The Committee already conspicuously harbors several of the Democratic Caucus’s most conservative, Wall Street-friendly members," the coalition wrote Thursday to presumptive Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who also serves on the committee and has raised millions from the financial sector over his career.

"Any attempt to have Evan Bayh installed as chair, or other efforts to appoint members who support the interests of Wall Street above those of the American people, must be opposed."

Since Bayh left the Senate, he joined on as a senior adviser for private equity firm Apollo Global Management and was put on the board off Fifth Third Bank.

The letter asked Schumer to publicly pledge that he will put members that favor stronger financial regulation on the committee rather than Bayh.

Although Bayh sat on the committee for ten years, records show that he didn't participate much in the workings of the committee.

An analysis of attendance records from Bayh's last two years on the Banking Committee found that he was absent from roughly 70 percent of hearings that were held.