House Passes Bill Written by Citigroup Lobbyists

—By Erika Eichelberger | Thu Oct. 31, 2013 7:48 AM PDT

In May, Mother Jones reported on a Wall Street-friendly bill that was largely written by Citigroup lobbyists. On Wednesday, that bill passed the House—but with fewer yes votes than expected.
The bill, which passed 292 to 122, would gut a section of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act known as the "push-out rule." As we reported earlier:

Banks hate the push-out rule…because this provision will forbid them from trading certain derivatives (which are complicated financial instruments with values derived from underlying variables, such as crop prices or interest rates). Under this rule, banks will have to move these risky trades into separate non-bank affiliates that aren't insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and are less likely to receive government bailouts. The bill would smother the push-out rule in its crib by permitting banks to use government-insured deposits to bet on a wider range of these risky derivatives.

The New York Times reported in May that draft bill language written by Citigroup lobbyists was "reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill."