Mulvaney urges ‘pay to play,’ critics say

WASHINGTON — The nation’s acting consumer financial watchdog delivered some good news and lobbying advice this week to the bankers he regulates: He would like to cut off public access to a database of consumer complaints and suggested the industry donate to lawmakers to persuade them to weaken his agency’s authority.

The comments by Mick Mulvaney, in a speech to a banking trade group, infuriated Democrats and consumer advocates who have complained that President Donald Trump’s handpicked chief of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is serving the industry instead of average Americans.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, called on Mulvaney, who also is the White House budget director, to resign both posts Wednesday.

In a speech Tuesday to the American Bankers Association, Mulvaney indicated he would eliminate the public’s ability to see the bureau’s extensive online database of complaints about credit cards and other financial products, a move industry executives have advocated.

Mulvaney also said he’s siding with them on legislative steps to reduce the watchdog agency’s authority. And when it comes to lobbying members of Congress to make such changes, Mulvaney recalled how he used to grant access when he was a Republican House member.

“We had a hierarchy in my office, in Congress. If you were a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you,” the former South Carolina representative said, according to a transcript provided by the bureau.

“If you were a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you,” he said. “If you came from back home and sat in my lobby, I talk to you without exception, regardless of the financial contributions.”

Mulvaney went on to remind the bankers that lawmakers juggle a lot of issues and need to hear from them because “they will never know as much about your issues as you do.”

“And I don’t even know what you’re going to go tell them, and you may be completely on the other end of the political ideology from me, and I don’t care,” he concluded.

Mulvaney wants to subject the bureau’s funding to the congressional appropriations process, require lawmakers’ approval for any new rules and give the president the power to dismiss the director for any reason.

Mulvaney’s comments drew outrage from Democrats and consumer advocates, who already have opposed his temporary leadership of the agency.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., called Mulvaney “a disgrace.” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., tweeted Wednesday morning that “Nothing says drain the swamp like telling a room full of bankers to give more money to politicians who put the interests of banks ahead of people.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tweeted: “Mick Mulvaney tells us everything we need to know about how Washington works, and why wealthy special interests Mulvaney make billions in campaign contributions.”

And then there was Brown: “Deciding who you will meet with based on campaign contributions is the kind of ‘pay to play’ that understandably makes Americans furious with Washington, D.C.”

In addition, Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray, the former director of the consumer agency, tweeted: “Mulvaney openly tells us that when he was in Congress, he made it a practice never to meet with any lobbyist unless they had first made a contribution to his campaign fund. He was bought and paid for, and he openly TELLS us he was bought and paid for. Wow!”

But John Czwartacki, Mulvaney’s spokesman, pushed back at that criticism, saying, “He was stressing the point that when you come into town, you should get to see your member.”

Since being appointed to the job in November, Mulvaney has scaled back the aggressive enforcement efforts that had been the hallmark of Cordray, and he has publicly declared the bureau no longer would “push the envelope” to protect consumers.

His overhaul efforts have been wide-ranging. And Tuesday, Mulvaney confirmed that he was even changing the formal name of the agency. It’s now the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Consumer advocates fear the change is designed to undermine the agency by making it sound more bureaucratic and de-emphasizing the word “consumer.”