Mediaboss Marketing

President Barack Obama signs the the financial reform bill into law July 21, 2010.

Getty Images

To sum up the past decade, you could call it a tale of two presidents.

For evidence of that, look no further than the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

The financial overhaul legislation was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010.

On the heels of the financial crisis, it was intended to help rein in banks. The law also paved the way for tougher consumer protections.

It ordered the SEC to evaluate how the industry provides investment advice to retail customers. In 2011, the agency released a study advocating for the creation of a uniform fiduciary standard for investment advisors and broker-dealers.

The measure also called for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government body specifically devoted to serving as a consumer watchdog.

Fast forward: On May 24, 2018, President Donald Trump signed a rollback of a number of banking regulations that were included in that law.

After signing, U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order rolling back regulations from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law on Wall Street reform at the White House in Washington February 3, 2017.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

And while that didn't affect the two big consumer protections, it is up for debate whether consumers are in a better position almost a decade later.

Aaron Klein, a fellow in economic studies at Brookings Institution who helped craft the Dodd-Frank Act, said the answer is a definitive no.

"The Trump administration took over," Klein said. "They told the police to take a break, and they stopped recording crime."

"Ultimately, consumers will lose billions of dollars as a result of purposeful neglect," he said.

One of the big misses this decade, investor advocates argue, is the failure to establish a fiduciary rule.

The regulation was aimed at getting brokers and investment advisors to adhere to a higher standard when providing advice for clients.

Many advocates consider the fiduciary standard to be better protection, because it requires financial professionals to put their clients' best interests ahead of their own.

Investment advisors, for example, have traditionally been held to that. Brokers, meanwhile, have answered to something known as the suitability rule, which means brokers were free to sell clients any investment as long as it was "suitable" for the client at the time, even if cheaper alternatives were available.

Efforts to put together a joint fiduciary rule created an ongoing saga over the past decade.

Despite the SEC's authority to issue a fiduciary rule, the panel mostly didn't take action following its 2011 report. It wasn't until this year that the agency began rolling out a rule called Regulation Best Interest.

While the SEC stalled, the Department of Labor and even some states moved to establish their own fiduciary rules. The Department of Labor's efforts were squashed when the Trump administration took over. But the DOL has said it plans to work on a new rule governing retirement accounts.

While Regulation Best Interest is legally in force, financial firms have until June to comply.

Comedian John Oliver takes a shot at non-fiduciary financial advisors and their spiraling 401(k) fees on a recent segment of "Last Week Tonight."

Source: Last Week Tonight | HBO | YouTube

The rule, called Reg BI for short, requires brokers to keep retail customers' best interests in mind when recommending securities. It also requires broker-dealers and investment advisors to provide clients with a new form that summarizes the relationship.

Critics say the rule falls short of providing investors with full fiduciary coverage.

"It, to some degree, made the area more complex and harmful for consumers," said Jamie Hopkins, director of retirement research at Carson Group and professor at Creighton University Heider College of Business.

"They've expanded the use of the language 'best interest,' when in my belief that's really 'suitability' plus additional disclosures," Hopkins said.

Yet many in the financial industry have embraced the rule.

Earlier this month, Kenneth Bentsen Jr., president and CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, an industry trade group that represents securities firms, called Reg BI a "robust and strict standard."

"It is not a disclosure-only based rule," Bentsen said. "It is much stricter than that."

Hopkins argues that the change puts the burden on the consumer to ask financial advisors if they are fiduciaries and to clarify how they get paid and what services they provide.

"If that's something you want, have the advisor put that in writing that they are a fiduciary," Hopkins said.

As with the fiduciary rule, efforts to develop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into a robust watchdog have also taken different turns amid the change in administrations.

For evidence, look no further than to the CFPB's own shifting leadership.

When Richard Cordray, the first director of the CFPB, announced in November 2017 that he was stepping down, both he and President Trump named a replacement.

Cordray promoted chief of staff Leandra English to the role of deputy director and said she would serve as acting director until the Senate confirmed a successor.

Instead, Trump named his own acting director, Mick Mulvaney.

Consumer advocates complained that the CFPB's authority was watered down under Mulvaney's leadership, citing an April New York Times Magazine article, "Mick Mulvaney's Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy from Within."

Last December, Kathy Kraninger was confirmed by the Senate as the new director. To cap off her one-year anniversary, the CFPB recently put out a release boasting of its accomplishments.

On that list is an item payday loans that has sparked criticism. These short-term loans often saddle consumers with high interest rates as they try to cover their cash needs between paychecks.

In 2017, the CFPB issued a rule that would establish stricter regulations for payday lenders. But this year, the agency has proposed delaying compliance and rescinding tougher underwriting requirements that lenders would face.

"The biggest concerns that we see with the CFPB today is they are holding the hands of the payday lenders," said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.

"That means that the debt trap will continue and people will continue to lose their cars and their bank accounts as a result of the continued destruction of payday loans," she said.

Klein also criticized the agency for "rewarding the naughty list."

"They have stuffed the stockings of payday lenders and the people who were convicted or pleaded guilty to financial malfeasance by reducing fines," he said.

The good news is that Congress has left the CFPB intact, which means a new administration could re-energize it, Klein said.

A woman enters an All American Check Cashing location in Brandon, Miss., May 12, 2017.

Rogelio V. Solis | AP

"A new director would have substantial authority to revive the agency, and elections have consequences," Klein said. "The CFPB day to day, month to month, needs to be independent."

However, not everyone agrees that having a separate agency dedicated to consumer protection is necessary.

The Federal Trade Commission already protects consumers against fraud, said Norbert Michel, director for the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

"All you did was give this new agency this vague new power and said we're going to figure it out later on, which isn't doing anything to protect anyone against fraud," Michel said.

The CFPB's evolution has helped to do one thing: raise public awareness of consumer protection issues, Jun said.

But as with the fiduciary rule, the onus is on the consumer to ask the right questions and speak up if they are wronged.

Individuals should still turn to the CFPB's public complaint database to make their voices heard, Jun said. They should also consider talking to a lawyer or reporting egregious practices to their state attorneys general, she said.

"If something doesn't seem right to you, look into it," Jun said.

See the article here:
This was supposed to be the decade of tougher consumer protections. That didn't happen - CNBC

Michael Thomas Nowak and Gregg Francis Smith object to the US authorities motion for a complete stay of the CFTC action against them.

About a week after the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a set of documents with the Illinois Northern District Court arguing in favor of a complete stayof the CFTC action against Michael Thomas Nowak and Gregg Francis Smith, the traders have objected to the authorities arguments.

Lets recall that the CFTC charges the defendants with spoofing, engaging in a manipulative and deceptive scheme, and attempting to manipulate prices in the precious metals futures markets while employed at a major US bank. On December 13, 2019, the CFTC and the DOJ once again made clear their stance that the civil case should be stayed pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

On December 20, 2019, the defendants filed their response to the CFTC and the DOJ. Nowak argues that the stay of the civil case should not be complete and that instead it should be partial, and discovery should be allowed to proceed.

According to Nowak, contrary to the CFTCs assertions, his request for a stay that protects him from taking actions that might implicate his Fifth Amendment rights, such as responding to pleadings, answering interrogatories, or being deposed, in no way belies his assertion that he seeks to resolve this matter as expeditiously as is practicable.

Nowak argues that the defendants have a strong interest in expeditiously resolving serious civil charges brought against them by government agencies.

The trader notes that waiting to begin document discovery until the conclusion of the criminal case will significantly delay the resolution of this matter, particularly because document discovery is likely to be extensive. Commencing document discovery now will avoid undue delay, Nowak says.

In addition, Nowak argues that the CFTC has conducted a lengthy and extensive investigation and presumably obtained extensive evidence, none of which it has shared with the defendants. In that context, a proposal that both sides be permitted to engage in document discovery cannot reasonably be characterized as an attempt to gain a tactical advantage, he says.

The defendants urge the Court to reject the CFTCs arguments and deny the DOJs motion for a complete stay of the action.

According to the CFTC complaint, from at least 2008 and continuing through at least 2015, Nowak and Smith repeatedly engaged in manipulative or deceptive acts and practices by spoofing (bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution) while placing orders for and trading precious metals futures contracts on CME Group Inc.s exchanges. The defendants are alleged to have placed thousands of orders with the intention to cancel them in order to send false signals of increased buying or selling interest designed to trick market participants into executing the orders the defendants wanted filled. The complaint also alleges that Nowak and Smith engaged in spoofing with the intent to manipulate market prices and create artificial prices, and thereby enable their orders to be filled sooner, at a better price, or in larger quantities than they otherwise would.

In its action against Nowak and Smith, the CFTC seeks, among other things, civil monetary penalties, disgorgement, restitution, trading bans, and a permanent injunction against future violations of the federal commodities laws.

More:
Precious metals traders accused of spoofing insist stay of CFTC action should be partial - FinanceFeeds

>>> Quang Hai in 24-man shortlist for Best Footballer in Asia 2019

Ahead of the 2020 AFC U23 Championship in Thailand next January, the AFC has hosted a vote for fans favourite goal from the eight iconic goals of the tournament since its inception in 2013. Quang Hais superb free kick in the snow storm in the final of the 2018 tournament was in the running.

After one week, Quang Hai's free kick against reigning champions Uzbekistan U23s in the 2018 final in Changzhou (China) was the winner of the vote, gaining a total of 1,159,847 votes, streaks ahead of the second most voted for goal by Iranian player Mahdi Torabi against China U23 in 2016 which had a total of 298,037 votes.

The voting result for the most iconic goal at the AFC U23 Championship.

The goal by the Hanoi FCs midfielder was ultimately the deserving winner as it was not merely an equaliser for Vietnam in a very tense situation against Uzbekistan in that final, but also showed other noble values such as team spirit, unwavering belief and the desire of the entire team in the harsh weather conditions many of the players had never experienced before.

Talking about the iconic goal of Quang Hai, the AFC wrote while Uzbekistan won the tournament, Nguyen Quang Hai captured the imagination of fans with his 'Rainbow in the Snow' in the final one of five superb goals by the midfielder providing one of the most iconic moments the competition has ever witnessed.

In the final in January 27, 2018, Uzbekistan opened the scoring in the eighth minute, thanks to Rustamjon Ashurmatovs header, but Quang Hais Rainbow in the Snow levelled proceedings as half-time approached. Vietnam performed admirably and appeared to be heading for a penalty shootout as the game entered its 120th minute. However, substitute Andrey Sidorov volleyed home Dostonbek Khamdamovs corner to seal the victory in the 120th minute to help Uzbekistan claim their first title of the AFC U23 Championship.

Let's witness the superb goal "Rainbow in the Snow" by Quang Hai. (Video: AFC)

The iconic goal by Quang Hai is expected to bring a lot of spiritual meaning to him as a source of encouragement not only for the Hanoian, but also for his entire Vietnam U23 team before leaving for Thailand to attend this years finals.

Coach Park Hang-seo and his players are eager to recreate their impressive achievement in 2018, heading towards a Top 3 finish in the tournament held in Thailand to be granted a ticket to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Currently, Hai and his teammates are in Ho Chi Minh City for their final preparation ahead of the 2020 AFC U23 Championship. They have arrived home after a 10-day training camp in the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Park and his Korean assistants will join Vietnam U23 squad in Ho Chi Minh City this afternoon after a short Christmas holiday in their home country. The team will be back to training from December 25 to prepare for a friendly with V.League 1 side Becamex Binh Duong on December 28.

On January 1, 2020, the squad will set off to Thailand for the 2020 AFC U23 Championship. According to the plan, Parks side will have one last rehearsal with a final friendly with Bahrain U23s on January 3 next year.

On January 10, Vietnam will officially kick-off their Thai campaign with the Group D opener against the UAE, before facing Jordan on January 13. The reigning runners-up will wrap up their group stage with a match against DPR Korea on January 16.

More here:
Quang Hai's 'Rainbow in the Snow' top voted for AFC U23 Championship's Iconic Goals - Nhan Dan Online

Practical obstacles to implementing policy illustrate how agencies assess their own constitutional authority.

Since 2017, the Trump Administrations successive executive orders and administrative actions have relentlessly assaulted the asylum process, dismantled foundational refugee protections, and distorted the immigration admissions system. A new administration must address the damage inflicted on individuals, institutions, and the rule of law. Because legislation is only a remote possibility, reversing recent policies and restoring a semblance of integrity will depend on decisive and effective executive actions

This essay offers personal reflections on some of the bureaucratic barriers to achieving change that a new administration must anticipateregardless of whether its most immediate efforts are merely restorative to return to the 2016 status quo ante or more ambitiously reformative to pursue new normative immigration policies. Although the threshold challenge for an administration is to determine its policies and priorities, the key to actually achieving meaningful reform will depend on the harder task of overcoming bureaucratic inertia and implementing new policies. That will be even more difficult than usual because of the norm-breaking practices of the current administration and the whiplash effect of reversing recently adopted measures.

I write based on my experience as a political appointee in the Obama Administration during the adoption of a series of immigration reform measures in 2014. For two years, I participated in the development and implementation of many of those reforms and in the day-to-day operation of the immigration adjudication apparatus as senior counselor to the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and then as the senior immigration counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. My background is atypical for someone in these positions. I spent most of my career litigating cases against federal immigration agencies as the founder and director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project, and I had neither the benefit nor the encumbrance of any prior executive branch experience. My discussion reflects on my experiences and elaborates on some of the real-world hurdles to implementing policy pronouncements, such as bureaucratic inertia, resistance to delegating discretion, cumbersome internal legal and policy processes, and the U.S. Department of Justices review of agency action.

Preference for Stasis. One embedded bureaucratic instinct I encountered firsthand is the well-known resistance to change, or perhaps more accurately preference for stasis. Although this might be explained by adherence to predictability, I experienced it as driven more by the entrenchment of the status quo independent of any purported normative valuesat least when the proposed changes were designed to move in a more immigrant-friendly direction.

An especially revealing experience arose from efforts to modify a categorical disqualifying factor in the adjudication of certain immigration benefits. The goal was to dial back just slightly a new ground for disqualification and to authorize adjudicators to exercise case-by-case discretion based on individual circumstances. After considerable intra-departmental discussion, I presented a proposed consensus approach to senior career managers. To my surprise, they opposed the change despite their earlier reported opposition to adopting the disqualification in the first place. I asked if they had supported the bar that we now proposed softening, thinking navely that confronting them with their own earlier views might diminish their current opposition. But that was not the case. Oh no, said one. Instead, the rule was wrong to begin with and a big mistake when it was adopted. But now that its the rule, we dont want to change it.

The preference for the status quo could be motivated by the burden of implementing changes, the risk of never-settled policy, the instinct that future cases should not be treated differently than those already completed, a general opposition to expansion of discretion, and perhaps a shift in normative preferences. But whatever the reason, a new administration intending to reverse recent policies must anticipate substantial bureaucratic resistance to abandoning any entrenched practices, no matter how recently adopted, and even if the career civil servants themselves strongly objected to adoption of the recent policies in the first place.

Resistance to Broad Discretion. A second experience was the bureaucratic resistance to conferring discretionary authority on adjudicators. This phenomenon arose in the context of trying to ameliorate some of the especially harsh consequences of particular immigration provisions where the law conferred greater discretionary authority than was being exercised, and some of us at USCIS sought to expand it.

Contrary to my expectations, I discovered a general opposition from many senior career public servants to expanding the authority of adjudicators to exercise discretion. The managers resisted because they viewed discretion as inviting arbitrary and inconsistent outcomes. Like cases should have like results, they insisted. If individual adjudicators were vested with substantial discretion, then similarly situated individuals would receive different results. Although not expressly framed in constitutional values, the resistance seemed rooted in the due process norms of equality, fairness, and consistency. Invoking the related value of transparency, career managers also explained that outcomes should appear legitimate to the applicant and to the public and thus should be based on identifiable criteria that cash out similarly in similar circumstances.

Yet interestingly, these due process-like concerns for limiting discretion did not seem to generate support for other fairness-enhancing improvements to the adjudication process, such as greater in-person applicant participation, a more active role for counsel, or increased explanation of outcomes. Some reforms of this type might, of course, impose costs that do not arise when restricting the exercise of discretion. But it is noteworthy nonetheless that asserting a fairness norm in one setting did not translate into concern for improved procedures across the board.

Another reason for resisting broader discretionary authority that was less explicit but that I strongly sensed is what political scientist Christopher Hood has called the blame game. Civil servants understandably fear they will be blamedby the public, the media, agency leadership, or their immediate superiorsif favorable exercises of discretion later lead to negative publicity or outcomes. Restricting discretion or choosing to exercise it negatively avoids that risk of blame. The goal of blame avoidance leads to an obvious asymmetry whereby negative decisions denying benefits or relief are safer than granting relief, especially in the immigration context where the subjects of government action are nearly invisible and powerless andunlike powerful regulated industriesrarely able to impose any consequences or costs on an agency that takes negative action.

In a related manifestation of the blame game, it appeared to me that career civil servants were also likely to view with skepticism or suspicion political leaders who sought to delegate discretionary authority to career employees. Such delegation was perceived not as an expression of confidence in the career bureaucrats but as a tactic by senior leaders to deflect accountability or to avoid blame if a decision later became controversial or turned out badly.

The resistance to conferring discretion led to a bureaucratic insistence on rules over standards, for bright lines over multi-factor tests, and for clear guidelines and prescriptive instructions governing any exercises of discretion. In my experience, when such direction is not articulated in some formal policy, the pressure for clarity shifts downstream to insistence on greater specificity in training materials, operating instructions, internal FAQs, or similar, less visible directives. But that, in turn, leads to diminished transparency if lower-level instructions are less subject to public disclosure. In any case, expanding individual discretion as a mechanism for injecting greater flexibility into harsh substantive provisions or prohibitions will encounter bureaucratic resistance.

The Review and Approval Process. The agencys deliberation and approval process is a further hurdle to overcome. One aspect, especially relevant to issues of administrative constitutionalism, is how agencies assess their own legal and constitutional authority.

At the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), primary responsibility for legal analysis lies with the chief counsel of the respective agencies who manage hundreds of career lawyers and report to the DHS Office of the General Counsel. Agency counsel and their staff decide in the first instance whether a proposed policy is legally authorized, requires formal rulemaking, meets constitutional criteria, and satisfies other legal requirements.

As part of that internal review processwhether for drafting proposed regulations, policy memos, field guidance, or new training materialsworking groups are composed of subject matter experts, operational representatives, members of the policy department, specialist lawyers from counsels offices, perhaps representatives of the agencys political leadership, and any other unit that has equities in the policy. The members work together over considerable time to craft and review draft documents until rough consensus is reached. Logjams are broken by elevating disagreements to more senior career managers or to the political leadership of an agency. This process is enormously time-consuming and subject to foot-dragging if any of the participating members raise objections or insist on consulting more widely. In my experience, the processthough working largely as intended to build consensuswas agonizingly slow and open to interminable delay and potential manipulation by those who opposed change.

Moreover, if a significant legal objection arises during this process, the issue must be resolved for the working group to continue, either by satisfying the lawyer who raised it or by elevating the issue through the legal chain of command. Very occasionally, in matters of great importance and where competing persuasive views among senior lawyers or advisors exist, DHS leadership might adjudicate the issue to make a policy choice after considering a range of legal advice. Although the General Counsels Office receives great deference, during my tenure the leadership of DHS was itself composed of enormously accomplished lawyers who actively engaged with legal issues, invited detailed presentations and debate, and exercised judgment to resolve divergent views.

The Department of Justice. The Justice Department plays a prominent role in assessing the legality of potential policies, most formally through the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The OLC process was striking to me because of the absence of a mechanism akin to the intense adversarial briefing and argument that I was accustomed to in litigation. During my time, I observed OLC publish a major opinion on the legality of the Obama Administrations Deferred Action for Parents of Americans initiative. The OLC process seemed intensely insular indeed what I would call bureaucratically monasticin that OLC considered and resolved legal questions through its own internal analysis and deliberations. Although expertise may be invited by soliciting the views of agency counsel, there appeared to be no institutional mechanism by which differing views from outside OLC could be openly presented, interrogated, and tested against each other.

The OLC process seems especially risky when dealing with a statute like the massively complex and convoluted Immigration and Nationality Act where the OLC approach is in danger of omitting or overlooking important perspectives and insights. OLCs role as the quasi-adjudicator of legal questions would be enhanced if its procedures recognizedas judges understandthat the crucible of adversarial testing is crucial to sound judicial decision-making and will yield insights (or reveal pitfalls) we cannot muster guided only by our own lights.

Lastly, the Justice Department may assess the litigation risk that a new policy could present. But doing so reinforces a status quo bias. Although assessing potential exposure to lawsuits is valuable, litigation risk is not the same as legal impermissibility. A judgment as to whether a policy might reasonably face some legal challenge should not be conflated with the range of permissible agency actions under the law. Otherwise, risk-averse assessments will preemptively constrain lawful agency initiatives.

A new administration can powerfully address the damage done to immigrants, the immigration system, and the rule of law since January 2017 by acting decisively and strategically. But effective implementation of change requires overcoming entrenched policies, anticipating bureaucratic realities, enlisting dedicated career civil servants, and streamlining baroque review processes. Appreciating these institutional realities is essential to overcoming them and to achieving reform when the opportunity comes.

Lucas Guttentag is the Martin R. Flug Lecturer in Law and Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School and Professor of the Practice of Law at Stanford Law School.

Lucas Guttentag is grateful for the encouragement and advice of Nicholas Parrillo and the excellent research assistance of Arjun Mody.

Here is the original post:
Reflections on Bureaucratic Barriers to Immigration Reform - The Regulatory Review

Sign Up for

Our free email newsletters

In the wake of every House Republican voting against impeaching Donald Trump, it's reasonable to see the GOP as the president's party, remade in his image. But to truly understand the transformation of the Republican Party during the Trump years, we actually should focus on someone else: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Jordan's journey from gadfly loathed by party leadership to ranking committee member, presidential confidant, and party leader exemplifies how the GOP has changed in the Trump Era and how Trumpism won't be easily undone after the 45th president leaves office.

The ideological transformation of the Republican Party has been ongoing for more than a half century. What was once the party of moderates like Dwight Eisenhower and liberals like Nelson Rockefeller, dominated by figures from the two coasts and stalwarts in the Midwest, slowly became a staunchly conservative party centered in the South.

By the time Jordan was first elected to Congress in 2006, the highly conservative Texan George W. Bush was president. But Bush had a pragmatic streak. He cut bipartisan deals on education and immigration reform (which failed thanks to a revolt led by conservative talk radio), added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, and preached compassionate conservatism.

The story of the party's move towards total war politics and Trumpism is the story of how Jordan's breed of politics eclipsed Bush's brand of conservatism.

Jordan was one of the most conservative members of the House during his first two terms. But he was also insignificant with Republicans in the minority. Once the Tea Party wave swept his party to power, however, Jordan was flush with new hardline allies. He was elected to lead the Republican Study Committee, a large conservative group within the new Republican majority.

Within months, he had become a thorn in the side of House Speaker John Boehner, insisting that failing to raise the debt ceiling would not result in the United States defaulting, and opposing a leadership proposal for addressing the matter. His staff even conspired with outside groups to pressure Republicans to vote against Boehner's proposal. Two years later, Jordan was a key player in forcing a government shutdown because President Obama would not agree to delaying and defunding his signature health-care legislation for a year a tactic Boehner had warned would leave leading Democrats grinning because they "can't believe we're this f---ing stupid." Though Republicans were widely perceived to have lost the shutdown battle, Jordan was unrepentant.

He believed that Democrats could be compelled to capitulate through the use of hardline tactics, brinkmanship, and a total unwillingness to compromise.

In 2015, Jordan became the founding chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, a smaller, even more hardline group that would come to fight against numerous leadership initiatives. By that fall, Freedom Caucus members against Jordan's counsel pushed Boehner into early retirement and helped scuttle the candidacy of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to succeed him.

While 70 percent of Freedom Caucus endorsed Paul Ryan to succeed Boehner, it was only after he made them numerous promises to secure their support. Even so, Jordan and his allies would make Ryan's life difficult as they had Boehner's. So much did leadership worry about Jordan that when House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz announced he would resign from Congress in 2017, leadership helped recruit Rep. Trey Gowdy to run for the position to ensure that it wouldn't fall to Jordan.

In an interview after retiring, Boehner called Jordan a "legislative terrorist" and an "asshole."

In an earlier era, a figure like Jordan who constantly picked fights with his own party's leadership would have faced serious repercussions. Banishment to the most insignificant and unpleasant committees, an inability to get things done for his home district, perhaps even a primary challenge.

But in an era with a proliferation of conservative media talk radio, cable news, and digital outlets someone like Jordan could instead become a star by picking the same fights. Conservative media is a business and the best radio and television comes from black and white content strongly voiced opinions, clear convictions, exhortations to principles, things that stir emotion and keep the audience tuned in. That meant that someone like Jordan preached what viewers and listeners the Republican base heard every day. Further, his style of politics made for far more compelling radio or television than a committee chairman or Republican leader explaining why divided government or Senate rules necessitated compromises.

This fit between the business interests of conservative media and his politics made Jordan one of the heroes on the conservative airwaves and a frequent guest. Stardom gave him too much of an independent power base by the mid-2010s for leadership to punish him meaningfully. He didn't need them for fundraising, and any attempt at discipline would've sent him scurrying to the airwaves to fight back. In the end, it might've been leadership who lost the fight because conservative media had the ear of exactly the sorts of voters who showed up in low turnout Republican primaries, the most critical elections in most Republican districts in an era of geographic polarization.

But while conservative media helped to make Jordan impervious to leadership criticism, it didn't make him part of that leadership. His elevation came thanks to Trump. Jordan caught the ear of Trump, and became a confidant and one of the president's fiercest defenders.

When Republicans lost control of the House in 2018 and Ryan and Gowdy retired, new House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Steering Committee installed Jordan, with encouragement from Trump, as the ranking member of the Oversight Committee. This was a significant change from 2017, when there was doubt the Steering Committee would choose Jordan given the animosity from many Republicans towards him. And then as impeachment hearings were about to begin in front of the House Intelligence Committee, McCarthy made the unusual move of temporarily removing another Republican to add Jordan to the committee. McCarthy saw great benefit in Jordan's trademark aggressive questioning and vigorous defense of Trump.

During those hearings, Elise Stefanik, long seen as the anti-Jim Jordan, a leadership ally, one of the most moderate Republicans in the House, and someone previously focused on solutions and bipartisanship, became an instant sensation with Jordan-like questioning and charges against Democrats, and even joined him for press conferences. Reporting indicates that this was a savvy move for Stefanik both in her Republican-leaning district and within the House GOP.

While it's unquestionably easier for leadership to be aligned with Jordan in the minority, when they have no responsibility for governing, it's also true that the onetime leadership antagonist is now the top Republican on a key committee and a major spokesman for the House GOP. Stefanik's move exposes how Jordan's tactics are what Republican voters want from their elected officials. Far from an outsider, Jordan is now part of the Republican establishment one that sees politics much more like he does than George W. Bush. And that's not likely to change even when Trump leaves office, be it in 2021 or 2025.

For better or worse, it's Jim Jordan's GOP now.

Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.

The rest is here:
How a 'legislative terrorist' conquered the Republican Party - The Week