Reports over the weekend claim Professor Warren went to the Hill (as in Capitol Hill) to find the votes she needed for her nomination to be the first head of the Consumer Finance Protection Board ("CFPB"). She came up well short of the mark. Wall Street fears her more than inflation and will easily have the votes to block her nomination from ever reaching the Senate floor for a vote. (Sad, but the subject of another story.)
So now speculation begins on her “replacement”. Reports over the past week claim the White House has discussed—or has in fact offered—the position to the following government officials: former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Massachussetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, Chairwoman of the FDIC Sheila Bair and Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Raskin. Notice anything? Hmmm. Yep. They are all women. To be fair, I left out a few names but there is no doubt the short list is dominated by women.
The interesting question is why? A few attempts at an answer:
First try. For all intents and purposes a woman heads the CFPB now, and so in the strange ways of Washington a woman must be her replacement. Think Supreme Court. When Sandra Day O’Connor retired, her “replacement” from the beginning was presumptively going to be a woman. And so began the ill-fated effort to confirm Harriet Miers. Why Harriet Miers? Well she was no Sandra Day O’Connor, but she was a woman.
Second try. Although in its infancy—heck it’s not even out of the womb—the CFPB will be known as an agency suitable for a woman to hold the reigns. Yes, it is the most important new government agency since the Securities and Exchange Commission’s birth in the wake of the stock market’s crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. But by design, or implicit discrimination, this one can be handled by a “lady”. It’s not Treasury or Defense, neither or which has ever been led by a woman. Those positions are reserved for those macho men who understand high finance and bombs and tanks. (I know little Tim Geithner is no Anderson Silva but you get the picture). It’s on par instead with HHS and Education, where women seem to be slotted regularly in both Democratic and Republican Administrations (Kathleen Sebelius (Obama), Margaret Spellings (Bush), Donna Shalala (Clinton)… you get the point).
Protecting consumers—what a quaint notion. Sort of like baking cookies and balancing the family check book. This implicit relegation to second-tier status must be nipped in the bud. Whether a man or more likely a woman “replaces” Elizabeth Warren, the attitude must be there is a new sheriff in town (think Javier Bardem and No Country for Old Men) and those macho men like Jamie Dimon, Brian Moynihan and Lloyd Blankfein better take notice.