Please do not mistaken Rep. Miller with the Bank-owned Iowa Tom Miller. Rep. Miller would have thrown Wall Street in jail.

The Nation-

A central focus for progressives that want to see the Residential Mortgage Backed Securities working group get tough on the financial industry has been the role of executive director. Currently, the group has five co-chairs from four different federal and state agencies, and the staffers are spread through ten different US Attorney offices and several more state attorney general offices—that is, there are a lot of chefs in the kitchen.

A strong executive director could focus the work of the task force and help smooth over any potential disagreements between the varying departments and chairmen. Several progressive activists pushed early on for Representative Brad Miller, a Democrat from North Carolina, to get the job. He has a strong record of getting tough on Wall Street from his seat on the House Financial Services Committee, and is also a Columbia Law School graduate with twenty years of private litigation experience before coming to Congress.

But David Dayen reported earlier this month that Miller would not get the job. In a phone interview last night, Miller told me about his experience with the working group and the reasons he believed he was not selected—reasons that will likely give advocates for getting tough on Wall Street some serious heartburn.

Miller said he received a phone call from the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman only two days after this year’s State of the Union address, in which President Obama announced the formation of the working group and named Schneiderman a co-chair. “It was out of the blue for me. I was not expecting a call like that,” Miller said.

[THE NATION]

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