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With federal regulators closely monitoring the financial system for more signs of crisis, lawmakers are divided about whether they could rise to the occasion if called upon to find a big compromise as they did 15 years ago.
The pessimists see a legislative branch that has grown increasingly weak even on major issues with broad public support, such as gun control and immigration.
Plus, they view the banking industry as unrivaled in its power, capable of whittling away at the sweeping laws enacted in 2008 and 2010 after Wall Street’s crisis sparked the Great Recession.
“I don’t know. I think it’s a challenge,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told reporters Thursday. “The special interest influence — I’ve been doing this a long time, as you know — I’d say it’s probably greater today than it’s been in my lifetime.”
But Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) remains the leading optimist…
This article was written by Paul Kane and originally published on www.washingtonpost.com