Turning the Fox Loose in the Henhouse

- September 8, 2014

Turning the Fox Loose in the Henhouse

Michael Bright, who had a brief career at two of the firms at the heart of the 2008 financial crisis and made the jump to Capitol Hill as senior financial advisor to Sen. Bob Corker, is now heading back to the financial world.

Where’s he going? According to a Washington Free Beacon article, Bright is heading to BlackRock, Inc.

We’ll let that sink in for a moment. From the Washington Free Beacon:

“Bright said on Thursday that he recently left Corker’s office to take a job at BlackRock, Inc., a top financial management that has mounted an expensive lobbying campaign on the housing reform bill.”

According to the Free Beacon, BlackRock has dropped more than $3.5 million lobbying on housing finance reform and other issues since 2013. We wonder how much of that lobbying campaign was directed toward wooing Bright!

Corker’s office found itself defending Bright’s hiring, claiming that his “extensive knowledge of housing finance”’ would serve them well. Government watchdogs, however, saw things differently. From the Washington Free Beacon:

“Anyone who really participated in Countrywide and Wachovia before the collapse happened was fully participating in the types of financial arrangements that caused the collapse,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman. “We’re seeing some of the rules evolving in this legislation that appear to be rigged for the bigger banks.”

And so now Michael Bright is going to work for BlackRock. Congressional ethics rules prevent Bright from lobbying the Senate for a year, but he can serve in an advisory capacity. And, as the Free Beacon notes, there is nothing preventing him from offering “contacts and inside knowledge to BlackRock’s lobbying team and give advice to former colleagues on the Hill.”

There has long been criticism about the revolving door between Capitol Hill and the K Street lobbying machine. Seems like watchdogs need to start keeping an eye on the revolving door between Wall Street and the Hill, and how financial-types-turned-staffer are cashing in on their way out of the public policy process.