Introduction to a Panel on the Modernization of Financial Regulation: What Is the Governmental Role in Finance, Anyway? - David G. Oedel

• Citation: Vol. 49 No. 3
• Publication year: 1998

Introduction to a Panel on the Modernization of Financial Regulation: What Is the Governmental Role in Finance, Anyway?by David G. Oedel*

On January 8, 1998, at the annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, a program sponsored by the Section on Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services was held, "What Is the Governmental Role in Finance, Anyway?" Three distinguished panelists made presentations outlining core concerns that the panelists argued should guide future governmental regulation of banking and finance. The following papers are based on the panelists' presentations at the conference and offer insights into the thinking of some of the most prominent figures in financial regulation today.

The papers are evidence of the rich mix in financial regulation of the theoretical and the practical, the historical and the futuristic, the political and the economic, the bureaucratic and the entrepreneurial—an eclectic array of forces that all line up to be counted in the legal calculus. The papers also implicitly acknowledge the general social importance of finance, as well as the sheer difficulty of any attempts to adjust the systematic character of financial regulation.

John D. Hawke, Jr., Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, offers some fascinating reflections on his ongoing efforts to help shape the future of financial regulation. Secretary Hawke is widely acknowledged as the point man in President Clinton's administration on the modernization of financial regulation. He has been credited with facilitating an ongoing political conversation into significant financial services reform, and in particular was thought by many insiders to have played a key role in shepherding the various parties unexpectedly close to financial regulation reform legislation in 1997.

It was on the heels of the stalling of financial regulation reform legislation in the closing weeks of 1997 that Secretary Hawke made the presentation to law professors that is memorialized here. In his remarks, however, Secretary Hawke remained cautiously optimistic about the prospects for enactment of legislation reforming financial regulation—and at least by this writing on May 18, 1998, Secretary Hawke's cautious optimism appears to have been well grounded. On May 14, 1998, the House of Representatives barely passed—but did finally pass—the House's primary financial regulation reform bill, H.R. 10, by a vote of 214-213.¹ Senate action is now pending, but...