What To Do with Melissa Bean?

Melissa Bean lookkng a bit apprehensive in her 2006 debate. She didn't appear on the same platform with an opponent until this year right before the election.

With Joe Walsh holding onto a several hundred vote lead before absentee ballots are counted in Lake and McHenry Counties, both of which he carried, the rumor mill on Capitol Hill has 8th District Democrat Melissa Bean being appointed head of a new Federal agency.

Which one?

Let’s let “Politico” do the talking:

MELISSA BEAN FLOATED AS CFPB HEAD – Buzz on Friday had Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) possibly getting tapped as the first Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head depending on the outcome of her too-close-to-call reelection race, in which Republican Joe Walsh maintained a slight lead as of Sunday afternoon.

“But a possible Bean nomination is not sitting well with reformers on the left who say the moderate Illinois congresswoman is far too close to the banking industry.

“Said one administration official: ‘It’s not clear she would be acceptable to the reformers.’”

There are a couple of critical opinion pieces about the trial balloon:

Here’s one by Jane Hamsher on “FDL Action.”

She writes,

“Bean has consistently opposed popular measures to rein in the banks, while taking huge sums of money from the Chamber of Commerce and the banks, at a time when the public blames the banks (and politicians who are too cozy with them) for the state of the economy.“The fact that her name would be floated at all as the head of an agency to oversee the banks is an indication that there’s some sort of death wish on the part of Democrats for the 2012 election.”

And, another by Joel Sabastian on Pro Publica.  He says,

“Blue Dog Coalition…Vice chair Melissa Bean, a critical player in the group’s efforts to weaken the overhaul of the financial services industry, is trailing a Tea Party-backed opponent in her suburban Chicago district.”


Comments

What To Do with Melissa Bean? — 2 Comments

  1. It’s amusing to read this Alan Colmes’ website
    http://www.alan.com/2010/11/09/melissa-bean-to-head-consumer-financial-protection-agency/
    Melissa Bean To Head Consumer Financial Protection Agency?

    There has also been criticism on Huffington Post and other channels. Is this how the progressives reward the “New Democrats” or “Blue Dogs” who Pelosi got to walk the plank for their agenda? If so, that should give pause to many others in the House and Senate who are vulnerable in 2012.

    Many of the estimated 63 seats which the Dems lost last week were held by “moderates” like Bean who posed as “fiscal conservatives” in order to win in relatively conservative districts. The survivors are largely the hard left progressives like Pelosi from hopeless urban districts. In any case, the Dems in the House got a taste of 25% unemployment last week.

  2. What really? I thought republicans were against government regulation?

    Melissa is against regulation, but because she has a D in front of her name, you automatically say “evil voter-hater”.

    C’mon Cal, enough with the partisan hackery already.

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