Republicans are deploying a new taunt to needle Democrats they say refuse to consider even modest changes to financial oversight laws: Why are you so afraid of Elizabeth Warren?

It’s part of an effort by the GOP to portray Democrats as being completely inflexible when it comes to changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank law because they are running scared from the populist wing of the party that views Warren, the most outspoken Wall Street critic in Congress, as their champion.


House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told a roomful of bankers this week that getting banking bills passed, particularly any dealing with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, depends on Warren’s sway over her Democratic colleagues.

“It’s [about], how powerful does Elizabeth Warren become?” he said.

Democrats are scoffing at the charge and argue it’s a ham-handed attempt by Republicans to make Warren the liberal Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator whose stances on a variety of issues have stirred up divisions between tea party and establishment Republicans.

“Whenever you point one finger, there’s three pointing back at you,” said Sen. Jon Tester, a moderate Montana Democrat. “I think you got to make sure your own house is clean before you start making such accusations.”

Warren declined to comment, through a spokesman.

The Republican focus on Warren (D-Mass.) follows a fight between Democrats last year over the inclusion of language in a year-end spending bill that watered down new derivatives-trading restrictions and was the subject of a years-long lobbying effort by Wall Street banks. Some Democrats had supported the change in recent years, but Warren led an unsuccessful campaign to sink the bill over the provision, warning it would amount to a crack in the dam of financial reform that would lead to a further weakening of Dodd-Frank.

While she failed to get the language out, Warren’s campaign against the bill left a mark.

Since that fight, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have sought to make clear they will not allow Dodd-Frank to be weakened after party leaders were taken aback by the uproar over the language in the spending bill.

The issue isn’t whether Democrats will back major changes to the law, such as requiring Congress to set the consumer bureau’s annual budget, but whether more modest changes can be moved, like easing rules for mid-size and regional banks and mortgage originators.

Democrats said they are hardly being inflexible by defending a law they wrote and note that members remain open to bills to help small banks.

“Democrats have shown a willingness to compromise on common-sense regulatory relief,” said Meghan Dubyak, a spokeswoman for Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee. “That includes tailoring regulations for community banks so that safety, soundness and consumer protections are maintained in a less burdensome fashion.”

Nonetheless, Republicans are eagerly holding up Warren as a major force calling the shots on Dodd-Frank.

“One prominent Democratic senator has said: All is well with community banks. All is well,” House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) this week told an American Bankers Association conference in Washington, referring to Warren. “It makes me wonder whether she has even bothered to walk into one, or she would never have uttered such nonsense.”

Later he joked that those bankers who planned to lobby lawmakers for banking changes would need good luck when they visited Brown or “Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who obviously has risen to prominence.”

“May the force be with you,” he told the audience.

Some on the Hill quietly acknowledge that there is a grain of truth to Republicans’ accusation that Warren has spooked Democrats away from supporting even modest changes to the law out of fear progressive groups will tag them as Wall Street shills. Democrats who had been receptive to relaxing some financial regulations in the past appear less interested now.

When it comes to these smaller proposals, lawmakers, staffers and lobbyists are increasingly eager to find out, behind the scenes, where Warren may possibly stand on any changes to Dodd-Frank regulations. If they feel she’ll blast it as a Wall Street giveaway, its chances of getting backing from Democrats drops.

While Democrats roll their eyes at the idea Warren is calling the shots, some concede the public outcry she led over the year-end spending bill has set the tone for this year’s debate.

“I’ve known Elizabeth Warren for a long time. She has not committed an act of violence against anyone I know, so I doubt my colleagues feel intimidated by her,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee who has worked with Republicans on the panel.

But he suggested things have become a little more sensitive following last year’s intraparty dust-up. “We shouldn’t be afraid to make changes to Dodd-Frank as conditions warrant,” Sherman said.

For his part, McCarthy said he came to realize Warren’s sway over the party as lawmakers last year negotiated a deal to extend the government’s terrorism risk insurance backstop, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, before it expired on Dec. 31.

House Republicans wanted to use the bill to change a Dodd-Frank measure to ensure that manufacturers, airlines and energy producers can keep making financial bets to protect against wild price swings on commodities, such as the price of oil. Regulators had already effectively put the measure into practice, giving these nonfinancial firms the leeway to keep making such bets, or hedges.

But these companies wanted Dodd-Frank changed, to be certain regulators couldn’t change their minds in the future. The move had lots of Democratic support in the House but was quite controversial during the fight to craft Dodd-Frank.

McCarthy said the lead Senate negotiator, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), told him the House shouldn’t force him to consider the Dodd-Frank measure, because “I can’t touch Dodd-Frank,” McCarthy said, quoting Schumer. “Why? Elizabeth Warren will throw a big fit.”

Schumer’s office said that’s not how it happened.

“This is no secret. Sen. Schumer told anyone who would listen that tacking unrelated provisions onto the popular, bipartisan TRIA bill could cause problems for many members of our caucus,” said Schumer spokesman Matt House.

In that case, House Republicans got their way, since the Dodd-Frank change passed on the terrorism insurance bill, although after Warren failed to scrub it out, forcing Democrats to choose sides.

Republicans have their own problems getting support within their party for financial reforms they say are priorities. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said extreme conservatives and progressive Democrats were to blame for blocking bipartisan efforts with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) to overhaul the long beleaguered government housing finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“I don’t think there’s any truth to that claim” that progressives are endangering bipartisan efforts, Warner said.