chris dodd

First they delayed the reforms; now they’re trying to expedite them.
The House approved legislation today to have its previously passed credit card reforms take effect next month, rather than three months later.
The bill is designed to fix a problem the lawmakers themselves created.

Attempting to fix a problem that his panel helped create, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) will introduce legislation today to prevent credit card companies from hiking rates on existing balances. Although Congress passed sweeping credit card reforms earlier in the year — including a ban on retroactive rate hikes — the banking lobby [...]

On Monday, it was Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) unveiling legislation to rein in overdraft fees. Today it’s Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) doing the same.
Both bills would require banks to get customer consent before enrolling them in the overdraft protection program; both would cap the number of overdraft fees at six [...]

Democrats on Capitol Hill were all cheers when they passed first-of-its-kind credit card reform earlier in the year — only to become publicly indignant when the card companies began hiking rates and fees in advance of those changes taking hold.
So after some Democrats initially delayed the implementation date until next year — a naked bow [...]

He’s been threatening to do it for weeks, and today Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) made good on his vow to push legislation reining in the overdraft charges that hit consumers who exceed their balances when making debit card purchases. Those fees — which average upwards of $30 a pop — have evolved into an [...]

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), interviewed today in The Washington Post, points to the central reason that a health reform bill that hits the floor with a public option already included stands a better chance of ultimately keeping that provision: Namely, the burden of getting 60 votes would shift from supporters trying to add it to [...]

A group of 10 Democratic senators today reintroduced legislation designed to end the sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine — a long-standing push that never quite seems to get enacted.
In a statement, the lawmakers cite the reasoning behind the proposal.
Under current law, possession of five grams of crack cocaine (roughly the weight of two [...]

Until now, the Senate’s health reform debate has been largely partisan, with Republicans blasting the various reform bills as a step toward socialized medicine, and Democrats, despite some criticism, firing back that the GOP is merely protecting the insurance industry at the expense of patients. Ideologically driven arguments, both. And the committee votes have reflected [...]

By 35 percent in just two years, according to a report released today by the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group. Those overdraft fees — applied when consumers exceed account balances when making debit card purchases — generated $23.7 billion in 2008, up from $17.5 billion in 2006, CRL found. For context, Americans [...]

Just out from the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee:
“If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons capability, it would pose a significant threat to peace and security in the Middle East, especially to our close ally Israel,” said Dodd. “That is a threat to both national security and global stability – and it cannot be [...]