Politico Pro Q&A with Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer


Missouri Republican Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a senior and well-respected member of the House Financial Services Committe, was recently interviewed by Politico Pro magazine. Portions of the interview appear below, as edited for length and clarity by the magazine.

“If Republicans keep control of Congress, what do you think will get done in the financial services space?

There will be a different makeup of the Congress, both on our side of the building and the other side of the building. It’s going to be a different dynamic to the entire place. We’ll have to wait and see what’s doable.

I have some ideas of things that I’d like to work on — some of the things we’re working on now. Data security and BSA/AML. The CECL rule is something that is front and center on a lot of banks’ minds right now. They’re very concerned about that.

GSE reform is something that’s high on the agenda of the administration next term.

If you’re chairing the committee, would you run it any differently than Chairman Hensarling?

You’re going to have to run it differently because I think the margins are going to be slimmer if we hold the House. We’re going to have fewer members to work with when it comes to votes. So it’s going to have to be run a little differently from that standpoint right off the bat.

When you have slim margins, you can’t afford to have a person or two that does not support the issue and not be able to get it out of the committee. You’re going to have to work with everybody to take their concerns and assuage those concerns so they would be willing to support the issue, or fix the issue in a way that will get their support. You can’t be quite as willing to push things through as we’ve been able to do in the past with some nice margins.

You have to be more pragmatic and willing to compromise?

That’s what has to happen. With margins slimmer, everybody’s going to have to be a little more pragmatic. Everybody’s going to have to be willing to compromise more. We’re not going to have the numbers to ram things through. It’s going to be very difficult.

As you know, we have a very, very wide philosophical and ideological group on the committee. We have moderates and the Freedom Caucus guys, which is fine. It gives us a good range of folks to really vet all these issues.

But when it comes time to vote, we’re going to have to have issues both groups of these folks can support. You can’t give up a vote here and there anymore. You’re going to have to have everybody on the same page. You’re going to have to be more pragmatic. Everybody on the committee’s going to have to be like that. You cannot be an ideologue and be on the committee and expect to get things done. There are just not the votes there to drive things through anymore.

What is your relationship like with Maxine Waters? How productive and collaborative would the two of you be at the top of the committee? What if she’s chairwoman?

That’s yet to be seen. It depends on what kind of agenda she tries to put out there. If she’s going to just do impeachment hearings every week it’s not going to be very productive. If she’s willing to look at regulatory issues and issues in the financial services world that are affecting consumers and our financial services industry folks harmfully I think there’s room there for us to work on different issues. We’ll see where she wants to take the committee.

There is more of a willingness on her part to work with our side of the aisle, which is welcome and we’ll see if that will continue.

Do you want to further investigate Wells Fargo?

We’ve had some hearings on Wells Fargo’s activities. If we need to continue that, we will. If there are any other banks or credit agencies or HUD or insurance companies or SEC folks we need to be taking a look at, why, yeah, absolutely, we will continue to investigate and do our job of providing oversight over those entities.

That’s part of our job. Any entity out there or group that is doing something they shouldn’t be doing, they need to be investigated by us and that’s part of our job.

Is there anything that’s top of mind with Wells Fargo that you would want to look into?

There are some investigations going on right now. There are so many things going on at Wells Fargo now it’s hard to say which one you want to pick. We need to wait until we get the election behind us and sit down and start looking at an agenda for what we need to be investigating here.

We have some data breaches here we may need to take a look at. Google and Facebook and those folks. I know [CFPB Acting Director Mick] Mulvaney has got a couple folks on the hot stove right now for some activities.

What about the Export-Import Bank, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program and the National Flood Insurance Program? Do you see any need to shut down those programs or tinker with them much? Are these big battles you want to have?

I personally don’t. We’ll let the will of the committee decide how they want to work and what leadership wants to do with those.

The terrorism insurance program has been a success. I think the rates have actually come down. More companies want to be become engaged.

Export-Import is still a controversial situation, with the Senate having a few folks over there who don’t want to allow it to continue to exist and holding up appointments to the board. We need to work with the administration and see what direction they want to go and work with Senate colleagues to see if they can fix it and make it work.

As you saw in the last battle, there’s a lot of support for the Export-Import Bank in our conference. Enough that we got a discharge petition to put on the floor and pass reauthorization against the will of our leadership. You will see there will be a lot of support for continuing to do that.

You personally support Ex-Im?

I personally do, yes.

What’s left to do in the banking space after S. 2155 (115)?

We’ll see what is doable. There’s a whole lot of stuff left to do. You saw the [Financial] CHOICE Act. If you want, take that as a template for things we need to get done. There’s a lot of that that didn’t get passed.

How much of it is doable?

That’s the trick. We just have to work with our Senate colleagues to see what kind of bar we need to set when we pass a bill. Working with our Senate colleagues and the administration is going to be key to getting things done, especially with margins more narrow in the House.

Banks are lobbying to loosen rules for cannabis banking now that more states are legalizing marijuana. The Comptroller of the Currency recently said a legislative fix is necessary. Are you going to be supportive?

This is an example of the cart before the horse. Until the drug marijuana — a Schedule 1 drug — is rescheduled so it’s not an illegal drug, we can talk about all of the bills we want to do to make it legal but you can’t make the activity legal until you make the drug legal.

I have a daughter that lives in Denver. I’m very well aware of this problem out there. I visit them regularly. I understand there are more and more states wanting to go to medical marijuana, which is fine. I don’t have a problem with that personally. I do have a problem with the fact we’ve got to make the drug legal before you can make the activity of selling it legal. That’s how we have to fix this.

There’s a legislative fix to deschedule the drug but nobody’s willing to do that.

So you wouldn’t be comfortable doing a piecemeal cannabis banking bill?

I don’t know how you can.”

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Mr. Woessner’s bio appears here.