Josh Gottheimer-- The Worst Democrat In Congress... And So Far He Has No Primary Opponent

There are a lot of bad Democrats in Congress. It's fair to say Josh Gottheimer is the worst non-freshman in the House. By the numbers, he has the lowest score of any Democrat for 2019-- 20.83. Even the garbage pile of freshmen Democrats the party would be better off without have voting records that aren't as bad as Gottheimer's:

• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- 37.50
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 37.50
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog- UT)- 33.33
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 29.17
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 25.00
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 25.00
• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)- 25.00

ProgressivePunch rates them all F, but Gottheimer's F is the worst. He's the new Kyrsten Sinema. A member for the House Financial Service's Committee, he's also stunningly corrupt. Donald Shaw, reporting Monday for Sludge, noted that "at the behest of a big-bank trade group, Gottheimer rallied 16 of his fellow Democrats to join him in urging financial regulators to gut a provision of Dodd-Frank that protects insured depository institutions from risky trading." Voters get confiused when they read that Democrats are up to the same tactics as Republicans when it comes to this kind of thing. Gottheimer muddies the meaning of the Democratic Party. He's in desperate need of a primary.

This is the letter from Gottheimer's office that would allow banksters who gamble with their depositors money to forego posting collateral when making internal derivatives transactions among their affiliates and subsidiaries. He rallied 16 Democrats to join him and the Republicans on this including Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI), Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN), Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Tom Suozzi (New Democratic-NY), Tony Cardenas (New Dem-CA), Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT), Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX), Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK) and Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL), Bill Foster (New Dem, IL), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY) and David Scott (Blue Dog-GA).

Shaniyat Chowdhury is running for the southeast Queens congressional seat held by one of the worst of these culprits, Gregory Meeks, the county machine boss. Chowdhury may be best known as a local and international rugby star but he's a Marine Corps vet and was a state legislative aide in Albany. "We the American people, cannot trust Wall Street to defend everyday Americans from predatory lending and families losing their homes and businesses," he told me early this morning. "We all witnessed what happened in 2008 that changed so many lives forever. Our country faced the greatest economical crash since the Great Depression. It’s a shame my opponent’s paychecks are paid by corporate executives and is implicit in profiteering off the back of taxpayers. This is exactly why I will not accept a single penny, nickel, or dime from corporate PAC’s. The people of NY-05 deserve a champion who will stand by them and fight against corporate greed. I stand by my pledge to represent the people of NY-05 and not Wall Street executives who have no interest in helping anyone but themselves." 

Gottheimer’s letter is the result of a lobbying campaign by the Financial Services Forum, a trade group comprised of the CEOs of eight of the largest U.S. banks, according to a report from Bloomberg. Gottheimer’s staff did not respond when asked by Sludge to confirm that the letter originated in their office. Gottheimer’s signature appears first in the list of 17 total signatories.

The provision requires financial institutions to set aside a cash cushion when making derivatives transactions among their affiliates in order to protect government-insured consumer bank arms from losses stemming from the activities of their riskier affiliates. Derivatives, which are financial instruments whose values are derived from underlying assets, played a major role in the 2008 financial crisis by simultaneously obscuring and distributing risks associated with the home mortgage market. At the end of 2018, U.S. financial institutions had nearly $40 billion set aside because of the inter-affiliate collateral requirement, according to a study by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

In the letter, sent to the heads of the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Gottheimer and his colleagues argue that inter-affiliate swaps do not raise systemic risk concerns because “they do not create additional counterparty exposure outside of the corporate group and do not increase interconnectedness between third parties.”

Some consumer advocates, however, disagree. “Loosening this regulation is a straight-up giveaway to the biggest Wall Street banks whose high-risk trading activities got us all into deep trouble in 2008,” Carter Dougherty, a spokesperson for Americans for Financial Reform, told Sludge. “This rule is critical for protecting bank affiliates that handle customer deposits.”

As Gottheimer urges the regulators to gut the rule, he and his spouse own as much as $315,000 in finance industry stock, including stakes in several banks whose CEOs are among the eight members of the Financial Service Forum, according to Sludge’s review of his financial disclosures.

Gottheimer’s financial industry stock holdings includes Financial Service Forum members Goldman Sachs (worth between $1,001 and $15,000), JP Morgan Chase ($1,001-$15,000), Wells Fargo ($15,001-$50,000), and Morgan Stanley ($1,001-$15,000). He also has between $15,001 and $50,000 invested in iShares U.S. Financial ETF, an exchange-traded fund that holds shares in Bank of America and Citigroup, both Financial Services Forum members, among other American financial institutions.

Gottheimer’s congressional campaigns have been heavily funded by finance industry interests. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Gottheimer received more campaign money from PACs and individuals in the finance/insurance/real estate sector during the 2018 election cycle than any other House Democrat. Over the course of his congressional career, Gottheimer’s top donor organization has been Blackstone Group, whose employees have given him $116,050 in campaign contributions since his first House campaign in 2015. Goldman Sachs is Gottheimer’s second largest career donor, with its PAC and employees contributing $80,150. Morgan Stanley’s PAC and employees have given Gottheimer $49,100, while JPMorgan Chase’s PAC and employees have given him $44,999.

The letter is not Gottheimer’s only recent expression of deference towards the big banks. At an April Financial Services Committee hearing on “Holding Megabanks Accountable” and featuring testimony from the eight CEOs that comprise the Financial Services Forum, Gottheimer praised the bankers and criticized his Democratic colleagues for not showing slides that reflect positively on the banks.

Other Democrats signing Gottheimer’s letter include top recipients of campaign contributions from PACs and employees of commercial banks such as Rep. David Scott (D-GA), Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL), and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY). In total, seven Financial Service Committee members signed the letter, including Gottheimer, Meeks, Scott, Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), Rep. Michael San Nicolas (D-Guam), Ben McAdams (D-UT), and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN). Phillips, a freshman, owns up to $290,000 worth of stock in all eight of the banks comprising the Financial Services Forum, including up to $65,000 in both Bank of America and Citigroup.

Democratic activists is Gottheimer's district have become aware about what a bullshitter he is. Here he is lying to his constituents about his role in funding Trump's concentration camps last week at a town hall: