Spencer Bachus, Newly elected Chair of Financial Services Committee Image Alabama Public Television
Yesterday, Congressional Republicans chose Spencer Bachus, Representative of the Alabama 6th District, as Chair of the powerful Financial Services Committee. (FT) Bachus will replace Barney Frank (D-MA4) in January – the two men are polar opposites; Frank being a Progressive “Democrat” most often associated wit the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and Bachus known as the most conservative House member ((Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Terry Everette (Retired-AL2) had the top two slots according to Open Congress.org)
Barney Frank, still holds seat on Financial Services Committee as Ranking Democrat - image wikipedia
In January of 2010 he sponsored a bill that would have suspended the current compensation packages for executives of Freddie and Fannie , HR 4476, the Equity in Government Compensation Acthas sat on the sidelines, once sent to “Committee” for review. The Committee: House Financial Services, chaired by none other than Barney Frank. A bill cutting compensation for Freddie and Fannie execs would not pass muster under Frank’s tenure – however, the new “Sheriff” may be able to, with a majority behind begin to make sense of the house finances (taxpayers dollars) after 6 years of Barney Frank’s oversight.
From Representative Bachus’ House website: http://bachus.house.gov/; in reading the “official biography” one gets the sense of a solid fiscal conservative and conservationist, who is going into his seventh term in the House. He has voted 93% of the time with Republicans, and has the ability to cross the aisle, albeit infrequently (OpenCongress).
Bachus caused a bit of a brouhaha, when speaking at a local Alabama function following the mid-term elections placing some blame on Sarah Palin, and her support of candidates, which , Bachus believed caused the GOP to lose the Senate(Shelby County Reporter), although one might argue, that the Senate was never in play, regardless of Palin's backing of Christine O’Donnell candidacy in Maryland. However, in the same address, he tempered his speech with a tone of reality, noting that the Republican’s are not in total charge in Washington, and importantly, that independents were responsible for changing the course of party fortunes, first for the Democrats in 2008 and then for the GOP in 2010. With Palin as one of the top GOP fundraisers in 2010, the remarks made by Bachus (although one might disagree with his point of view vis a vis Sarah Palin), show a man who is a pragmatist, looking at the “big picture” when it comes down to a numbers game.
It will be interesting to see how Bachus deals with Frank, who now is the ranking Democrat on the Committee – neither man appears to be a wallflower, and with Frank’s tight race for reelection, and knowing he will be challenged again in 2012, with perhaps a tougher race on his hands, he will be virtually hamstrung trying to fight on two fronts: one for the Progressive school of finance in his Committee Assignment, and one for his job, in the MA 4th Congressional District.
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