Friday, December 02, 2022

Gambling On A Post Senate Career

A big problem with the standard view of political corruption among federal electeds is that it mostly involves campaign contributions. You know, the lobbyists for Industry X steer $50,000 into your senate re-elect committee and you do their bidding. This actually doesn't make any sense at all, and it's maddening that "we" all pretend to take this seriously year after year.

The reason powerful electeds dance when they say dance is so that they, their families, and their staffs all have lucrative careers to fall back on.

No one looks at this comprehensively that I'm aware of, but quite often you see the random name of a Senate failson working in some rather strange job they have no particular qualifications for and everything makes a bit more sense.

Theo's got a good career ahead of him after Groton, is what I'm saying, assuming this bet works out.
On Tuesday, Politico reported that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) former director of the division of market oversight, Dorothy DeWitt, had just joined Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) office as chief counsel for finance. Before DeWitt’s two-year stint at the CFTC, for about a year, she worked as the vice president and general counsel for the cryptocurrency company Coinbase’s business and lines division.

During the peak of abortion politics in the summer, the Prospect reported how Gillibrand, a recently anointed “crypto hero,” unveiled the industry-friendly Responsible Financial Innovation Act with Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). The bill included a study of whether to allow people to purchase crypto assets for their retirement accounts. Eventually, Gillibrand would co-sponsor Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Boozman’s (R-AR) Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA), the most likely crypto bill to pass, which would designate oversight powers for “digital commodities” to the CFTC, as opposed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Throughout the development of a crypto regulatory framework, the New York senator has consistently functioned as a moderating force.
DeWitt's revolving door career is apparent, of course.