Sen. Elizabeth Warren, more than any other candidate, has framed her platform around responding to corporate misdeeds and influence in Washington. Other 2020 presidential candidates are also distancing themselves from big banks. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images Finance & Tax Big banks offer 'target-rich environment' for 2020 Democrats

The 2020 Democratic presidential campaign is just getting started, but one thing is already clear: There's no shortage of candidates running against big banks.

More than a decade has passed since the financial crisis, but the campaigns of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are tapping into lingering resentment among voters about wrongdoing by the nation's largest lenders, threatening to punish executives and break up Wall Street giants.


Yet even some candidates closer to the industry are distancing themselves from it.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who counts Wall Street as a major hometown industry, is backing a proposed financial transactions tax that is fiercely opposed by the banks. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is concerned about increased corporate consolidation in the banking industry, spokesperson Sabrina Singh said.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) launched her presidential campaign with a speech touting a 2012 mortgage settlement she reached with banks as California attorney general. And Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has called for breaking up large lenders and reviving a Depression-era that separated commercial and investment banking.

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Democrats, Warren told POLITICO, should be talking about how "'too-big-to fail banks are bigger than ever and they get their way politically in Washington."

The growing pull of anti-Wall Street populism threatens to expose the banks to stricter regulation and more dramatic government intervention if the party regains power in Washington. But even now, with Democrats in control of the House, oversight hearings will take on a higher profile.

On Wednesday, Democrats will launch an opening salvo against the industry, when the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and four other major banks will face hours of questioning from members of the Financial Services Committee. The panel is led by Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — a liberal icon who has proposed shutting down big banks that abuse their customers.

The CEOs will face criticism about their compensation and record profits, a wide range of legal troubles at their companies and their stance on societal issues like guns and climate change.

"It's a target-rich environment," Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said in an interview before the hearing.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who considered entering the race early this year, said voters want to know where the candidates stand on the financial industry.

“It’s ultimately whose side you’re on as a presidential candidate, as a senator, as a House member,” Brown said in an interview. “Are you on the side of the Wall Street banks or are you on the side of workers and consumers who get screwed by them? Pretty simple.”

Democrats' open animosity toward the banks is the latest evidence that the industry has been unable to overcome public anger over its role in the 2008 financial meltdown, even as executives tout steps they've taken to shore up their once-shaky balance sheets.

A series of customer abuses by Wells Fargo that affected millions of Americans have rekindled questions about whether lenders of its size are simply too big to manage.

The CEOs of the big banks will make the case at the hearing that they've increased their capital safeguards since the crisis and taken unprecedented steps to prepare for their institutions' demise if the financial system is rocked again. They will point to their efforts to expand diversity and inclusion, promote affordable housing and support economic growth across the country.

“There is no doubt that the strength, stability and resiliency of the financial system has been fundamentally improved over the course of the last ten years,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in written testimony for Wednesday's hearing.

Yet for 2020 presidential candidates, targeting big banks is a way to demonstrate their willingness to hold powerful interests accountable and to address concerns about economic inequality.

Several of them took a stand against the industry well ahead of announcing White House bids. Ten Democratic lawmakers in the mix for the presidency — Gillibrand, Booker, Beto O'Rourke, and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), among them — voted against a landmark bank deregulation bill that became law in May. Only two voted for it.

Warren, more than any other candidate, has framed her platform around responding to corporate misdeeds and influence in Washington.

Among her ideas: Jailing CEOs of big banks and other corporations for widespread harm inflicted by their companies, imposing restrictions between commercial and investment banking, and establishing a special inspector general for financial crimes.

Warren has long represented a wing of the party dissatisfied with the way former President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats responded to the crisis. Democrats enacted stricter regulations for the industry in the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, but progressives have argued that the measures didn't go far enough to punish "too big to fail" banks.

The banks are "bigger than ever and pose a threat," Warren said, "and they continue to come to Washington to ask for less regulatory oversight."

One of Booker's priorities, according to his spokesperson, is addressing bank overdraft fees that are “a huge source of revenue for banks but long targeted low-income customers who struggle to stay out of debt."

Gillibrand, New York's junior senator, has started advocating for the new tax on financial trades, which she said would "update the rules for Wall Street, help prevent systemic risk in our financial system and raise revenue so we can invest in our economy." It's an idea that aligns her with Sanders and puts her at odds with big banks that are lobbying to stop the proposed tax.

In addition, Gillibrand has pushed for letting the U.S. Postal Service offer banking services, another liberal dream that banks oppose.

Harris, whose mortgage settlement with banks has been criticized as providing too little assistance to homeowners, has had some sharp words for the industry.

"I’ll tell you, sitting across the table from the big banks, I witnessed the arrogance of power," she said when she announced her candidacy in January. "Wealthy bankers accusing innocent homeowners of fault, as if Wall Street’s mess was of the people’s making."

O'Rourke was willing to support regulatory changes that would benefit big banks when he served in Congress, but a spokesperson for his presidential campaign said he now believes that "we need to better regulate large banks."

Meanwhile, bank CEOs and their Washington representatives have tried to connect with House members in private and make inroads before the hearing. It's unlikely to spare them from Democrats' wrath.

"They seem to be listening, and it seems to me that they want to have a working relationship with us," said Rep. Lacy Clay of Missouri, a senior Democrat on the committee. "They just haven't figured out a way forward yet."