A group of Democratic legislators wants to give Goldman Sachs and General Electric veto power over financial reform legislation.

That may not be what members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they want. But it seems to be the result of a power play described in The Times today by Eric Lipton.

Those legislators are unwilling to vote for a financial reform bill until a company owned by their backers, Inner City Broadcasting, persuades lenders including Goldman and GE Capital to renew a loan.

The article reports:

If caucus members vote against it, the legislation could fail, dealing a significant blow to the administration. “While we appreciate the need for the expansion of regulatory authority, we can no longer afford for our public policy to be defined by the world view of Wall Street,” Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, said Wednesday, in explaining the decision by Black Caucus members to withhold their votes.

It seems to me that is exactly what she is doing. If Goldman and G.E. want to block the bill, then all they need to do is refuse to make the loan. Better yet, they could hold out for amendments to weaken it, which might be inserted without the public knowing why those changes were being made.

Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Affairs Committee, says he has talked to unnamed companies about the need to finance Inner City, which seems to be over-leveraged.

Imagine the reaction if, perhaps during the 1998 Asian financial crisis, a group of Republican legislators had threatened to block legislation unless a contributor to their campaigns received special treatment. Then imagine what would have happened if a powerful House committee chairman had called companies with a direct interest in legislation pending in his committee and asked them to help out that contributor.

Why is this any different?