House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet with Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid tonight–a weekly meeting–and will discuss the creation of a congressional panel to investigate the causes of the financial crisis and worsening recession, Hill sources say.
In 1933, a Sicilian-born American lawyer named Ferdinand Pecora became the chief counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, and conducted a wide-ranging investigation on the causes of the financial crisis that prefigured the Great Depression. Today, Pelosi says she wants Congress to take a similar look into the collapse on Wall Street.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley says that the majority leader is broadly sympathetic to the idea of congressional action, but notes that a panel could be figured in a number of different ways.
Pelosi plans to speak with House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank about a new Pecora commission later this week. Frank has also articulated support for the idea.
I’m awaiting a response from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd’s office on whether he’d support a process along these lines, and will report back when it comes in.
