Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) targeted fellow Democrats in her latest fundraising effort by attacking those who voted to begin debate on a bill that would ease banking regulations, according to The Hill.
Warren's campaign team sent a fundraising email to the senator's liberal base calling out the 16 Democrats who voted in support of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which Warren derisively called the "Bank Lobbyist Act," a bill that would roll back some aspects of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act.
"The Senate held its first floor vote on the Bank Lobbyist Act — their bill to roll back the rules on some of the biggest banks in the country," the email read. "We want everyone to know whose side their senators are standing on this week: the big banks or the American people."
Warren, in a blog post Thursday, said "I call it like I see it on the #BankLobbyistAct" and acknowledged that her attacks would make her more unpopular.
"But Massachusetts didn't send me here to fight for big banks," Warren wrote.
Several Democratic aides told The Hill that Warren's opportunistic attack was "annoying" and "galling."
"It's just unbelievable that Elizabeth Warren would not only attack her colleagues but also use this opportunity to raise money for her campaign," one aide told The Hill.
"This bipartisan bill is about providing relief for community banks and credit unions across rural America and no misrepresentations of this bill change those facts," another said.
The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act intends to raise the bar for how much in assets a bank must have to be subject to the highest levels of regulatory scrutiny, which were implemented by Dodd-Frank after the 2008 financial crisis to protect against risky investment and lending practices that contributed to the crash.
It is a Republican-authored bill that has received notable bipartisan support, although Democrats further on the left have come out against it.
