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Legislative Intent Service, Inc. News & Notes

Some bill research does not include the Governor's file because at the time we researched the bill, the sitting Governor had not released his chaptered bill file. If the Governor's file is not included with this particular research, please contact our office (1-530-666-1917 or quote@legintent.com) and we will be happy to provide this file at no charge if it is available. Please Note: Governor files did not exist prior to 1943.

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 NEWS AND NOTES

 

What’s in a Name?  Federal laws may be named after the legislators who carried them, reminding us, by way of its title, that legislation is always a human-generated process. While some of these enactments have names you would recognize and relate to a specific topic, most people do not know anything about the individual lawmaker whose name identifies the federal act. Here are a few brief biographies of the legislators behind three well-known federal finance bills:

  • Glass-Steagall:  Democratic Senator Carter Glass of Lynchburg, Virginia and Democratic Congressman Henry B. Steagall of Alabama authored the Glass-Steagell Act of 1932 as well as the Banking Act of 1933, which is also referred to as the Glass-Steagall Act.  On the heels of the 1930s depression, the changes proposed by these landmark banking bills included limiting commercial bank securities activities and affiliations between commercial banks and securities firms, which were later repealed by legislation in 1999 and asserted to have helped precipitated the financial crisis suffered in the late 2000s. Rep. Steagall described his bill in the May 23, 1933 Congressional Record as a bill that would “provide for the safer and more effective use of the assets of banks, to regulate interbank control, to prevent the undue diversion of funds into speculative operations, and for other purposes.” [pg. 4023]  Sen. Glass, originally a newspaper man before his election to the 57th Congress, served as chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations during the time that the two Glass-Steagall bills were enacted in the 72nd and 73rd Congresses.  Rep. Steagall, a graduate of the law department of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1893 and an Alabama prosecuting attorney before his election to the 64th Congress, served as chair of the House Committee on Banking and Currency during these same two Congresses. In his public service career, Sen. Glass was also appointed to serve as a member of Pres. Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury from 1918 to 1920.  Sen. Glass served in Congress until his death in 1946 and Rep. Steagall served until his death in 1943.
  • Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002:  This bill enacted major changes to the regulation of financial practices and corporate governance following the collapse of Enron, Worldcom, and other corporations.  Democratic Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland and Republican Representative Michael Oxley of Ohio each carried bills (S 2673 and HR 3763, respectively), which resulted in the Senate passing the Sarbanes bill and inserting the text into HR 3763 for the House to consider.  Coming up against a tight deadline of August of 2002 set by Pres. Geo. Bush, both Chambers went to conference and ultimately passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  During this time, Rep. Oxley served as chair of the House Committee on Financial Services while Sen. Sarbanes served as chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.  Sen. Sarbanes’ early background included attending Balliol College in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, graduating from Harvard Law School and working early on as a legislative draftsman for the Maryland Department of Legislative Reference.  As a federal legislator, he was elected in 1970 as a Congressman in the 92nd Congress, and later was elected in 1976 to the U.S. Senate.  Rep. Oxley, a graduate of Ohio State University College of Law in 1969, worked for the FBI and then as a private practitioner until he became a member of the Ohio House. His federal career began with the 97th Congress as a representative and continued until 2007. 
  • Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act:  Democratic Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut both introduced financial overhaul bills in 2009 and 2010 (HR 4173 and S 3217, respectively) to promote the financial stability of the U.S. by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end “too big to fail”, to protect taxpayers by ending bailouts, and to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices. After S 3217 was amended by the Senate, it was substituted for the text of HR 4173, triggering a conference that resulted in a substitute that resolved the differences between the House bill and the Senate amendment, and less than one month later, Pres. Barack Obama signed HR 4173 into law.  Sen. Dodd served as a Peace Corp volunteer before attending University of Louisville School of Law in 1972.  He was elected as a representative to the 94th Congress in 1975 and later elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980.  Rep. Frank completed graduate work in political science and as a teaching fellow in government at Harvard University in 1972 and then graduated from Harvard Law School in 1977.  His legislative career included the Massachusetts state legislature before being elected in 1981 to the 97th and succeeding 14 Congresses. In 2010, when the Dodd-Frank bill was enacted, Sen. Dodd served as chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and Sen. Frank served as chair of the Senate Committee on Financial Services. 

 

What’s in Any Other Name?   Curious about other federal bills named after the legislators?  Let us know and we will be happy to provide you with more information about the authors of these bills.

 

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