WASHINGTON — A vote on a House plan to replace the Dodd-Frank Act may not happen as quickly as originally expected due to limited floor time and other legislative priorities, such as health care reform, that are likely to take precedent.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling is hoping to reintroduce his updated version of the Financial Choice Act soon and had planned to vote on it in the first quarter, but the schedule is expected to be pushed back, according to a top Republican lawmaker.
“The timeline on it is sometime in the next two, three months to get it out of the House and hopefully get it in the Senate,” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said during a speech Wednesday to the Credit Union National Association's government affairs conference.
The committee passed the Choice Act in the last Congress, and Hensarling has been working on an updated version. A memo of changes to the bill was leaked earlier this month with the most notable difference being in how it treated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans have long called for a bipartisan commission to lead the bureau rather than a single director, but the memo indicated that the revised bill would keep the existing leadership structure and instead gut the agency’s regulatory and enforcement authority.
Yet Luetkemeyer suggested that even though the bill that may be introduced with a single-director structure, it may ultimately include a commission if it passes the House.
“You will see a lot of bipartisan support for a commission,” Luetkemeyer said. “I think what is going to happen here … when the bill goes to the Senate, what you will see is a compromise down to the commission.”
Democrats on the panel suggested that the delay could be because the bill goes too far even for Republicans in revamping Dodd-Frank.
“I was told the Choice Act was kicked to summer,” Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash., said Tuesday on the sidelines of the CUNA conference. “It is because it was a bridge too far even for their own members.”
But Republicans said they remain ready to mark up the bill when the timing is right.
“I still hope the House Financial Services Committee will introduce and mark up a Financial Choice Act and that will be done in a way that is coordinated with the wishes of the administration,” Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., a panel member, said in an interview after Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.
Rep. Bill Huizenga R-Mich., who is also on the committee, said in an interview that his meetings with administration officials led him to believe that, while Trump didn’t directly address Dodd-Frank reform in his address, the Choice Act is "definitely high on" his list of priorities.
“We will see” on the timing, Huizenga said. He added that “we are dealing with a difficult repeal and replace of Obamacare, a difficult tax plan moving forward.”
“We just need to be ready to go on our replacement of Dodd-Frank with the Choice Act,” Huizenga said.
Republican leadership would rather move bills quickly from committee to the House floor than leave them in limbo after a panel vote. If the Choice Act is delayed too long, however, the House Financial Services Committee may also have to turn its attention to reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program, which is set to expire in September.
